Reasonably positive start to the week

Luckily BG has been easier to catch this week before work. She isn’t coming straight down but she seems to have got over her fear of her shelter, there is only occasionally the slightest hesitation before entering, and a slight hesitation as her head collar goes on her nose. She has been lunging beautifully too. She used to collapse in on the circle but now she is carrying herself right out on the edge of the circle (I think she is trying to pull my arms off) and has become very responsive to my voice aids.

I tried to introduce trot to halt and halt to trot transitions a little while ago, and it was taking quite a few strides to do the transitions. Last night she was perfect, and did them straight away when asked. I use ‘steady’ to warn her that I am about to ask for a downward transition and ‘come on then’ to warn her I am about to ask for an upwards transition. These are like my vocal half halts, to tell her I am about to expect something of her and to listen.

She is better on her ‘bad’ rein at the moment, she has a tendency now to turn in on the halt command on her ‘good’ rein, but even that was better yesterday.

Unfortunately, just as I was coming to the end of lunging her on her ‘bad’ rein P2 was brought back into the field and BG turned round to see what was going on and after that refused to lunge on her ‘bad’ rein. It has been a long time since she refused to do that.

Earlier in the week I jumped her too. It isn’t a big jump but big enough that she has to make an effort. I have popped her over it a couple of times, but this time I am not sure if she was trying to tell me something and that she didn’t want to do it for a reason. She tries to run out the side of the jump, and after the first attempt she was on her toes and trotting round me in circles. Quite often I interpret this as enjoying it, as her eyes prick up and she trots towards the jump. For a brief moment this week though she turned her back on me and stood there, so I am not sure if this was supposed to be a message. In case it was I did only a couple of jumps (it is all quite new to her anyway so I don’t want to over do it).

Then this morning BG saw the car pull in and was reasonably near the gate so actually came over to meet us, the first time she has done that for a while. Then she followed me round and peered at me as I prepared her breakfast. I’m happy she was happy to see us.