Always learning

Yesterday I went to the barn with the intention of playing with both Willow and Pixie and liberty. Willow is really just starting this journey with me and right now we are focused on confidence building exercises. I had no plans really for Pixie, other than just playing.

Willow and I started out in the morning. I brought her into the big arena and brought the stick and stick with us because I wanted to use it as a target. The stick is long enough she can target it a good distance away from me. It gives her a visual of where I want her when leading. She started getting nervous as we approached the arena...odd for her at this point in our training. And when I let her go she took off running and proceeded to run the fence at the far end. It took me a minute and then I realized the only thing different was the stick and string...so I dropped in and walked over to her. She calmed down and took some treats. After a minute I went back to the stick and started walking over to her. She immediately tensed up and wanted to leave. So I just waited. I started to click her for looking at it and within a few minutes I was able to have her touching it. It took her some time to figure out I wasn't going to drive her off with it. After that we did some great targeting work.

I learned a big lesson today. I never thought Willow was scared of the stick, but thinking about it she has always been online while we played with it. Just goes to show how good they are at hiding their feelings while haltered because they have learned they have no other choice.

After targeting we worked on the fun noodle tree, with only two noodles to make it easier. We had worked on this the other day with a bunch of other boarders. Both Willow and Pixie went through it on the ground and under saddle, so this should have been easy right. Wrong, again I was shown that just because they do it while on line doesn't mean they are happy about it. We didn't feel like we had forced them to go through before, but they must have felt some pressure because when I took off the halter it took them a while to go through at liberty. They did it in the end. And it really didn't take that long, but it was the point that they were very clear with me they were not comfortable with it in the beginning.  Pixie definitely went through it faster, but we have played so much more at liberty, and plain and simple she has more trust in me than Willow does.

 I have always said once you take away all the equipment you are only left with the truth and once again Willow didn't prove me wrong. Another lesson learned for me!

My horses are always teaching me lessons, more than I ever teach them.