However, I made a critical error in my hurry that I would only find out about when I got back.
I rode the complete hour for the first time. I had lots of questions for KT.
#1 - The horse seems to have lost her turn on haunches since we started doing counterbent circles.
#2 - Should I ignore spooking in the arena or work her harder there? (On trail, my method is to bend and leg yield her as you know.)
#3 - Is she ready for loosely adjusted side reins while lunging?
#4 - She's still not backing in a fluid manner.
***
The turn on the haunches came right back this week with some more practice and just getting two little steps at a time. Trying for a complete 180 rollback (at a walk) is still too soon for my unbalanced horse.
The spooking must be ignored - she explained that by working her more on the scary end of the arena, the horse thinks I'm being foolish about a serious danger.
Side reins - not ready yet, not even loose - just do ground driving/doppellongieren. The horse still needs a release from a rider's hand when she stretches down, she shouldn't ever meet a solid object with her mouth. Not yet.
Backing - just keep practicing on the ground. We do. She can back half the arena nicely now, but when I'm on her, she sticks. KT says it's her downhill build, and that I should focus much more on transitions than other things.
OK so we did lots and lots of walk trot stop back transistions, and then leg yields, and then the much more difficult shoulder-in, at a walk and for the first time, a trot. I had to pretzel myself to do this properly. She wants my outside shoulder forward, and my inside hip forward. That is kind of an awkward twist for me. The center of my body must still be straight. Huh. I had an audience, Heide, and I was pretty embarrassed at this exercise.
I did laugh a lot in this lesson, cuz Mara is so willing, so good, she wants to do what I want, if I'd just get it together. Next time I'll have KT ride again to show Mara what correct is.
KT noticed my Bauhaus Tshirt and asked if I was at that concert. I said, "In 1998? Yes." She said, "Me too, in Cologne." Ha, I knew she was a goth chick. She wears that type of jewelery and lots of black.
She took the reins away from me to show me something and I said, "Reins please?" and reached forward. She said, "You don't trust this horse!" I said, "Not completely, not yet." She said, "I will buy her from you, really. She's wonderful." I'm happy she thinks so.
She told me to slow down, to stop trying to do everything so fast with her. I said, "But I only have 2 more weeks to get her trained. Just kidding." So impatient to do more, and more....
On return home the donkey was sticking her head over the stall door. It was the first time I'd stalled her while we were gone, because she's taken to pacing and it's starting to rip up the geotilies in one corner. I thought in the stall she can't do anything bad. Wrong.
Baasha's black and silver polarfleece cooler was drying on the divider wall. I'd had it positioned mostly on the other side so they wouldn't be tempted to mess with it. They never mess with things, they're girls.
I was so pleased about them never messing with things until this day. As foreshadowing, I was confronted today for the first time by my lovely black Hamilton halter in the mud. The donkey had finally decided to mess with it.
And the cooler. Oh my. She'd spent a lot of effort getting that thing completely to her side of the wall, and then she:
- Peed on it
- Pooped on it
- Walked circles on it the entire time, treading the poop and pee deeply into it
There was a bit of bedding in there (the ministraw stuff - 1/8 to 1/4 inch bits of straw) worked into the blanket so you couldn't quite see what color it should be, with that and the poop and pee.
It was so horrible I had to laugh. I don't really blame Bellis, I should have put it away. But she was clearly displeased about being locked in a stall for an hour and that was the only way she knew how to show me.
I sprayed it with a hose for a half hour and I think it might be OK.
When my man came home, I took him out there to show him the geotile and tell the story. As he stood there greeting both Bellis and Mara from over the gate, Mara suddenly bit him in the shoulder!
It was so sudden, I couldn't believe it. He (rightly) whacked her muzzle away, and she threw her head up and hit that little metal planter that swings there. She stood with her head down, grinding her teeth for several minutes, feeling guilty. I tried to tell J that she was aiming for the donkey, that she didn't mean to bite him, but he was pretty upset and went into the house to inspect his arm. He'll have a bruise tomorrow. The thing is, both animals love him, cuz he never does anything to them but give them treats and love on them. I honestly think she was trying to get the donkey away from him and didn't aim correctly. (That's no excuse, I know.) Whenever anyone visits our animals over the fence, Mara pushes the donkey back so she gets all the attention. The donkey persists though.
My poor husband, he's been thrown against a wall by her (during a veterinary tubing) and now bitten. I've never been hurt by her, and I am with her a lot more.
My man just came in to use this laptop and I said "Give me 3 more minutes to blog about your poor arm."
He nodded his head emphatically and said, "Good."
4 comments:
Ouch!!! Poor J!!! I hope it's not too bad.
It sounds like the lessons are going well. I'm so happy you finally found someone who is reliable. :D
Already, I like your trainer. Go slowly now so you can go faster later!!!
As for your man's arm: yowch! I hope he smacked her hard! No teeth anywhere near humans no matter what, that's the rule.
Apply ice. Offer chocolate.
Ouch! Poor J. Glad the lessons are going so well.
Acheive, well, out of the last 6 weeks or so (when did I start?) she cancelled twice. Once due to illness and once due to rain. I am stubbornly refusing to cancel, even though the weather is horrible for me. But if it gets over 25, screw it. She's *relatively* reliable I guess!
Aarene, she's got that typical German forthrightness, that's for sure. She was pretty adamant that if I want to go faster, I should just sell her now. She doesn't have that non-stop positive attitude that Mell and my Seattle trainer have, but competence is the most important thing, so I'll take it. (If only she weren't nearly twice the price of Mell *whine*)
J did appropriately whack her, immediately, proud of him for that. I apologized the rest of the evening. I explained that for the vet accident, he was at the wrong place at the wrong time, coulda happened to anyone. But for last night, the only reason he got bitten was because those two fight over his attention. That's why it doesn't happen to me, I'm nothing special to them. I was pondering how it could happen with strangers, too, when they greet the two of them, and how awful it would have been if it had happened to his very fragile grandfather last month as he pet them over the gate. Hopefully Mara will never, ever do that again after this. I wish I could be certain of it.
Annette, thanks, it sure feels good to be back learning dressage. Though my heart is elsewhere, my baby brain horse has to grow up in her physicality as well as her mind. Would be nice if she'd been a little further along though, when I bought her, for her age. But I guess it's better not to have to fix things. She's very good at giving to pressure - light in the bridle, but doesn't respond to leg aids as dramatically as I wish, and I refuse to use a whip at this point. One good thing about her lack of reactivity - it goes hand in hand with her lack of bitchiness about her body. She's not girthy at all, and doesn't have the "don't touch me" that some mares have.
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