Fieldtrip!
Considering that I just said I wasn’t taking Ro anywhere for a week or two, this was all sort of a spur of the moment decision, but Ro went down to my trainer’s today for our lesson.
She was fabulous - the whole trip went smoothly, and although she was excited about the new place, she kept her brains between her ears.
She was a little more ZOMG! about this barn than she was about the other two places I’ve taken her, so for the lesson all we worked on was focusing and relaxing. She wasn’t bad—she was actually very well behaved—but she was a little… ZOMG!
Ponies! Jumps! Yellow jumps! Flower boxes! Roll tops! ZOMG!
But she was good—just excited and interested and not sure what to make of all the stuff.
The only things it really took her a while to get over were the flower boxes. I’d walked her past those before getting on, but the first time I rode her past them, she turned her head, looked at them, and twisted her head as far away from them as she could get it. Then on the next step, she bowed out her neck while bringing her head back in line… then her shoulder… then her barrel… then her hip.
It was the weirdest thing I have ever seen. She did not want her body near those boxes, but she wasn’t spooking away from them… just… bending. Individual body parts. Selectively. As she passed the boxes.
Once we started working instead of just meandering around, she got over the boxes and went past them like a normal horse.
The trip home also went well. She did object to loading onto the trailer, but I don’t think it was the loading, exactly. She’d get both front feet on, stare at her poop piles, and then back off and look at me. Like I was supposed to fix it for her? There wasn’t really anything I could do about it—I wasn’t going to leave her tied to the trailer and go hunting for a wheelbarrow. A few false starts later and she loaded just fine.
All told, it was a complete success. And the thing that makes me very, very happy indeed—and that sets this trip apart from the two previous ones we’ve done—is that she came off the trailer blowing and snorting, obviously very excited. But despite the ZOMG! factor, she kept her brains, remembered her manners (no squishing the two-legged creature holding the lead rope, thanks), and never got stupid. Her confidence and her coping skills have come so far in the past year; it’s just amazing. I am so, so pleased with how she handled today.
Jane says 28 February 2011
Whohoo!!
Go, Ro!
Love the bending: trying to obey and avoid at the same time. Totally funny, and I can see it.