Day 7

Continued with our progression. We are now able to direct our horses in the rodeer without upsetting them. Going from walk to a trot to a canter. Great progress with my horse. Played in the playground with the saddle on. She wasn't bothered by it at all. Jumping up and down, climbing, squeezing through etc. It seems like she has solved her issues with having something tied to her back. I try to keep up with her tempo in the playground and make each task more and more interesting for her. She is doing lot's of progression with it. By the end of the day some of us mounted up on the horses inside the round corral.

Be the minister of YES, not the ambassador of NO!

Day 6

Great demo's from Berin on hoof prep and how to use trees to your benefit. We moved further on the skeleton from accept the human to accept the saddle. We continued where we ended last friday with acceptance of the saddle. In order to establish a good pattern we again turned the horses loose with the saddles in the end. To my big surprise my horse didn't buck! Maybe the tarp exercise was exactly what that colt needed to solve the puzzle.

Time  Quality  Price

- pick any two

Sunday

Took it very easy to make sure to not bore my horse. Repeated the same patterns as before again with lot's of friendly game. It's good this game because it's the only one you can't over do and yet it's the one we don't do enough of. So lot's and lot's of friendly. Everytime I present an obstacle I challenge her with something new. This is appreciated by her busy mind and she's such a clever horse and can solve the puzzle very quickly. We had a big breakthrough with the tarp. She licked and chewed and finally turned loose. We'll see tomorrow if this helped her with the acceptance of the saddle or not.

Horses often forgives but never forgets.

Saturday

Day off but with horse time. Continued building with what we had played with last week. Pond, trailer, carwash, tarp etc. Everything starts to fall in place. I found my horse has problems with the tarp in zone 3 (how interesting!) so I tried to help her get her confidence back. Lot's of approach and retreat. It was better by the end of the session but she hasn't turned completely loose yet. I wonder if this can be the key to why she was bucking with the bareback pad.

You are preparing the horse for the customer, not for yourself