Arena work

Temperatures were still bitter cold yesterday so I decided just to work Pixie and Navi in the indoor arena. Pixie has a new obsession with the big green ball that we play soccer with. The minute I turn her loose she heads straight over to it and starts pushing it around, all the while stopping to look at me to see if she can have treats. Much to her dismay I didn't reward her for playing with the ball. I tried to explain to her we can't just play with the ball every time we enter the arena, lol, sometimes we have to work on other things. She didn't believe me though, so instead of free lounging we did some on-lead work. She worked beautifully once I got her focus off the ball :) Hopefully today we can get some riding in and then we can play some soccer to reward her.

Navi had a day packed with lessons. She has been off the last week or so due to me working and then the bitter cold weather. I figured it was time for her to learn yielding her hindquarters, backing up out of my space, and the start of lounging. I started out the day easy for her I turned her loose and we just worked on not leaving me when walking. She gets rewarding for staying with me, if she leaves no big deal, she just doesn't get rewards. She has this down pat! She sticks to me like glue, in fact so much that our first lesson on the lead was backing away when I told her too. It took her a minute, but she figured out pretty fast if she moved away I would come to her with the reward. Was she perfect, no, we had our baby moments of wanting to move into me and the pressure. But I would call it a good first lesson on leaving my space.

Lounging time. She did really well overall, she left my space when requested and with a small amount of pressure would move out. We had a few tail swishes and one tiny kick out when I tapped her to go faster. We walked and trotted both directions a few times around before calling it good. She only tried to leave the circle a few times, but was easily brought back in. All in all a great first lounging. I have dealt with older horses that are much worse. I am sure she will test in the future, but I am prepared :)

Yielding hind quarters proved to be a bit more tricky. I started asking her to flex and not move. I wanted to discourage forward movement. Well she flexed both ways nicely, but when I would ask for her to move just her back-end she would pull forward and against me. So I backed up and made sure I was asking her in a very clear way. She did what most babies do, she moved forward into me numerous times. I would stop and correct her, and the minute she would even just lean her back end without moving her front end I would reward her. Before long she was yielding both sides. Perfectly..no, but she was no longer trying to run me over so it was a win and we will work on it more today. 

I love having two horses in completely different stages of training. I find joy in teaching Navi the small things and perfecting Pixie in the more difficult areas. It has also shown me just how far Pixie and I have come! I had almost forgotten what it was like to have a horse you couldn't free lounge. Pixie can walk, trot, canter with no line and not leave my circle. She will move out and in on command, its odd going back to the beginning, but rewarding all at the same time. I can yield Pixie's hindquarters just by looking at them and from almost any distance. Even when she is running around her pen having a brain fart refusing to be caught (she was off her game this last week and luckily she she back to herself now)she will still stop and turn into me. Pixie can be spooky and un-trusting, but if treated right she can do about anything! Navi is super confident and trusting. I expect she will test me in more ways then one as we progress in our training. The one thing I have to keep in mind, is I don't want her to give up and just do it. I never have to worry about that with Pixie, she will always tell me when I push her to hard. She will leave me if she doesn't trust me in the situation. Navi is the polar opposite. I don't want a broke horse I want a trained horse.