Monday, November 1, 2010

Day 48-54: Humans and their "stuff"

Monday Morning it was business as usual at Whispering Hills. Eclipse performed well and got him a wonderful home. Raven and Pandora made it home safe and sound. Sunday night we had a light rain shower. I had left the 22 ft line on Raven forgetting to change to the shorter one when we got in the night before. Agitated by the rain raven had decided to roll and when I found him Monday morning the 22ft line wrapped around his mid section with slack in it. The opportunity was too much to pass up. It was such a great opportunity to desensitize him to girthing pressure. While he was in the stocks I was able to get my hands on the other end of the line and was able to slowly snug up the pressure around his girth area. The increasing pressure didn't seem to bother him much to my surprise. This was encouraging.


Tuesday and Wednesday it rained so my time spent with raven was in the feed stocks. I Haltered him and put him on the 22-ft line and threaded it through the boards in front of him. I grabbed a grooming brush and began grooming him through the stocks. When he relaxed I actually climbed to the top of the stock divider and began to brush him from on top. I was able to brush him from head to tail on top from both sides. I also continued to touch his hind legs with the training stick and it didn't cause him to kick anymore.

Thursday- It is now time to embark on Raven's learning lesson about humans and there stuff! They one thing that sets us humans apart from other mammals is our stuff, and us horse people have a lot of it!. (You can ask any husband of a horse owner!) Our recent rain left a towel semi damp from rain in the hall of the barn. It was just what i was looking for! the wet town was better then a saddle pad for throwing on him. The wet gave it drape and cling! I tied Raven to his processing post and began tossing the towel over his neck back and hindquarters on both sides. I could tell raven really wanted to move, his eye on me the whole time. Once he relaxed a little bit, I spread the towel out across his back like a saddle pad and untied him. I then moved him around the feed pen area to see what he would do. He actually didn't mind the towel at all! We continued to play on the ground. When it comes to leading and handling, Raven still struggles with going through gates because I have to send though and turn him around so that I can close it. This of course requires Raven to show his vulnerable sides to me as he goes by. To help with that we spent a good bit of time getting his confidence by going back and forth through the feed pen gate. At times he would do his classic back up and pull me with this please don't make me look. Most of the time I was in a position to wrap the rope around the post and stop him. We got this to a good place and called it a day.

Friday- I played full body rub down. What this is basically is me hopping up and down and rubbing my body against him. He did well with this all the way back to the shoulder on both sides.

Saturday- I upgraded my stuff to a saddle. He did great with this and never offered to buck! Pictures are more valuable then words so take a look.
















Sunday- I saddled him again with no issue and played on line in the pasture. Enjoy some more pictures.









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