I already knew what I wanted to tackle on day two. That mane! I bought her some Cowboy Magic and some rubber bands for braiding. I started my doing her tail. Just trimmed the bottom couple inches off to make it look more professional and full. It looked great! Her mane? I started by cutting it. It is really amazing how much more refined and sporthorsey they can look just by doing their manes! After cutting it I started pulling it as it was super thick in some parts. She was SO good while I pulled! It did it for about 10 minutes before she started fussing a little. I figured we would end there for the day. It still needs a lot of work but we will get there.
 |
| Mane before |
 |
| Semi after (not done yet). She is such a ham! Always wants to be right by me! |
One thing I noticed is that she is kicky with her hind legs when asking her to pick them up. You can rub ropes all over them, brush them, but the minute you ask her to pick them up she cow kicks. Something to work on for sure.
After grooming her and sacking her out to the splint boots (she didnt care at all) we headed outside to work on our basic showmanship again before we headed in for our first round pen session. She picked up on all the showmanship work really well. She always takes the first 5 minutes or so to settle down and get back into our rhythm but after that she was great. She halts when I stop, back when I back up and stays out of my space. We also worked on improving our haunch and forehand turns which are slowly but surely making progress!
Then to the round pen we went! She definitely knew where the gate was and knew that was the way out. For the first couple tries around the pen she tried to stop at the gate, but by the end she was working really well without trying to stop or even hesitating at the gate. By the end of our short session she was walking, trotting, stopping and switching direction on command! I was super pleased with how she worked in there.
Day 3:
Day 3 continued with me trying to tame that wild mane! It really wants to go on both sides and I am trying to train in to all fall on the correct side. I had to braid the bottom half of it (the half that wants to flop on other side). Hopefully that works! Today we began by sacking her out to wearing a blanket. She has a super cute purple one :) She looks super cute in it too. We continued refining our showmanship skills and worked on trotting in hand from both the near and off side. Some encouragement was needed but after a couple goes she trotting when I asked with my voice and me starting to trot with her.
After our showmanship lesson I worked more on sacking her out to the whip with the plastic bag. I can shake it, wave it, or put it over her head without her caring! Well that was a short lesson!
The next beauty thing we needed to tackle? a bridle path and whisker trim! I got some clippers out and rubbed them all over her, let her sniff them, turned them on and let her just look at it, and eventually started bringing them towards her muzzle to trim her whiskers. She was unsure of them at first but was not reactive other than moving her head away. By the end I clipped her whiskers and her bridle path! The clippers were not working so well on her bridle path but even with the loud bad noises she didnt care. I could ask her to lower her head to my knees so I could clip up there and she did!
Another successful day for sure :)
 |
| Waiting in her stall (looking at her outside pen) |
 |
| Such a cutie! |
No comments:
Post a Comment