On Darcie for the first time!

Only a little bit ... but it's a start.

Going back a bit ...

Ellie and I were desperate to see the horses, so after a big day of putting together kitchen cabinets, off we went.

We had to wait for Bernie to get back because my car is off the road for another day or two, in order to get cheaper third party rego.

So we went up in the Fiesta (again, for me) and drove around looking for Wart. We went everywhere in the big paddock and didn't see him! So we drove back towards the gate and as we came in view of the dam, there he was cantering towards us. He'd spotted us!

We beat him to the gate and got out of it, then gave him his food.

He's so cute the way he blisses out on his feed with half-shut eyes.

Ellie had brought her saddle (Barefoot Cheyenne original model) and bridle (Nurtural bitless) in order to ride Orion.

Our new lead ropes and Darcie's new halter had arrived from Lodge Ropes. The leads even have Darcie and Orion's names embossed in the leather popper at the end, no extra charge. :) Darcie's halter was made to her measurements - also no extra charge. :)

While Darcie was eating I groomed her, rubbed her legs and picked them out, did a bit of "slap and tap", and jumped up and down beside her, and did the same but closer so I was touching her while doing it - and stopped only when she lowered her head or put it into her feed bin.

Ellie tacked up Orion and off they went for a ride. She did a bit of jumping and plenty of walking, trotting and cantering.

I started with Darcie with "desensitise to rope" since we had a new rope, and then did some lateral flexing. Then we practised backing up along the laneway. She is getting calmer about it while still hustling. Also we are getting better at guiding her while backing. We did "tap the air", with air tapping being all she needed, "waggle wave" and she was going on quite a small waggle, and "marching", which she gets a little confused at and thinks sometimes I want her to do LFR and heads off sideways instead of backwards. Also she didn't hustle like she should and got a couple of taps under her chest. I will report though that she was raising her forehand a couple of times while backing up during "marching".

When we got up to the other end of the alley, she was a bit worried about some new electric tape that was up, so we spent some time doing "sending exercise" near and towards it. At first she was rushing through but after about ten minutes or so she walked through calmly. I was giving her some time between each "send" for thinking and for rubbing, and also letting her just look at things on the way through - so a stop and a sniff was fine.

Then we headed towards the arena and Ellie was coming up the other way with Orion. Darcie avoided a pile of branches and leaves from a big branch that had come down and was cut up, so we did some sending exercise next to that, too.

I should mention that she's moving her forehand over nicely to yield space to me now, and also we are doing "changing sides", varying between pointing to start her, and moving her by touching under her jaw, every time I want to change the side I'm working with during desensitising.

(Also I get her to yield her quarter when I want to come up beside her for grooming.)

Somewhere in there we were doing circle driving too. I do a bit of circle driving most times we lead places now. It just fits in.

There was a lady lungeing a very "Araby" Arabian in the arena as we headed down towards it. He looked very nice and striking with his high head and tail and Araby trot.

Darcie was a bit leery of a bit of shadecloth that had been thrown over some stuff so we did sending exercise near that, too. Then same again as we walked past the outside of the round yard, for some reason.

That seemed like a great place to do sending exercise, but Darcie started rushing, and also not yielding her quarters easily. I swatted her quarters to get them around better, but she was rushing even more.

I could have kept going with sending, like we'd done before, but instead we switched to LFR stage 2, asking for changes of direction with a roll-back over her hind end, to get her thinking more about me and less about what was around her. Have not done LFR 2 for a while. We are not perfect at it, but better than the last time we did it. There were some nice roll-back turns there. I was finding that moving towards her a few times as she turned, as it shows on the video, was helping her to roll back with her weight back, instead of moving in towards me.

By the time we'd done that, Darcie was quite sweaty and blowing (so was I! But not as much as her).

A perfect time to do desensitising. I started with "run up and rub" but soon turned it to "jump like a kangaroo towards her and rub". That went well, even when I banged into her on the last jump, or trod accidentally on a hoof. I did it from the front, and then gradually angled it around until I was coming from the side.

I need to start doing it from behind more, as she tenses a little when I suddenly come from behind or beside-behind. She's good from the side so that should go OK.

The Arabian was coming out of the arena as I was finishing up with that, and Darcie wanted to look, so we switched to lateral head flexing.

From there I was bouncing up and down beside her, and rubbing my body on her as I did it, and it was a natural progression to allow my weight to come up and over her back. Only for a half second at first, and then progressed to about five seconds. It was getting dark so just a little was fine. She handled it well - she was a little concerned but stayed still, and the more I did it, the less concerned she was.

I was using her mane to help with my jump, with the left hand, and hooking my right forearm around her wither to help with leverage. It was most likely that which caused the tension more than anything else as I'd not done that before. But she got used to it fast.

I then moved her over and started on the off side but was hopeless at jumping up on that side. I could do it once but I am much better on the near side - that's the side I jumped up on during all my childhood and teenagerhood. So didn't manage to get more than a hint of weight on her when jumping from the off side, but did do lots of floundery jumping and landing all down her side and a bit over her back.

I'm going to need a mounting block to get weight on her from the off side. So some mounting block training is coming up. :)

On the way back to the paddock we did some more circle driving, and also I started teaching her inside turns.

One thing I noticed was that after doing the LFR 2 she was much quicker to put her head down and just quietly have it rubbed. Sometimes she moves her head around - something that started after she got it injured that time.

Another thing I'm not sure about is what to do when she tries to mouth the stick when I'm rubbing her forehead with it. When she puts her nose up to mouth it, it's hard to keep rubbing on her forehead. What I'm doing is ignoring and continuing the rub, and then when she puts her head down, stopping with the stick and starting with my hands, or just leaving it for a little bit.

Anyway, exciting! I've been on my horse! Only the tiniest bit, but it's a start.

I was so excited that I rang Cin, my friend, to tell her - HAD to tell SOMEONE that would appreciate it! (I'd probably told Ellie as many times as I could without driving her nuts ... and she'd been there to see it.)

It was only a tiny thing but it's a step between doing ground work and ridden work. It's the transition.

getting the flow and having fun

I've been slack and didn't post a couple of days back. We've been renovating - that is my excuse, but it's not a very good one.

The day after the last post I went up again. This time I took Darcie for a walk. We backed up a way at first, doing "tap the air", then "waggle wave", then "marching". The backup is getting better - smoother. She has plenty of energy when she does it. Sometimes she gets confused and goes to start off in LFR rather than going backwards. More practice at learning what the different cues are more clearly will fix that.

Then practiced leading with her changing her pace to speed up and slow down and stop with me (trot, fast walk, slow walk [which she found the hardest to do, to slow those feet right down], halt), and also responding to my hand pointing ahead for her to speed up.

We did some sending exercise up and down a bit of a bank/cut away. She was quite full of beans and throwing some excited bucks in so we did LFR 1 up and down the bank, to give her a bit more of a workout.

Then some more backup and some more leading, and then "run up and rub" and "slap and tap" in a different environment to the one I'd been doing it in before. (Oh and had been doing rubbing with the stick in between the other stuff, and rubbing her head, and ears, and nose, and things.)

On the way back from that we did some changing direction/changing sides stuff that I'm not sure if it has a CA name but was a useful thing to do, where I just switch hands and direction and she shifts her front end around to follow without running over me, and that flowed into some circle driving and changes of direction in that. Then some more leading practice on the way back to the paddock.

It was all nice and flowing, and fun too, not so much a "training session" as "having fun" with plenty of good training stuff thrown in.

practicing backup and some other things

Ellie is away and so I went up by myself. I was driving the little Ford Fiesta and gave it a bit of a scare, driving it into the big paddock. Wart was happy to have a feed. He's getting a bit brumbyish - moved away at first when I was feeling his hocks. But got over it. He needs a trim.

Orion and Darcie ran up for their feed as usual. There is a chestnut that comes up too and tries to dart out the gate, so I have to keep an eye out for it.

They didn't go straight over to the feed, instead grabbing a bit of the short sweet grass outside the gate, so it was easier for me to assist them to make the right choices in where to go.

Darcie is getting pretty good at moving her quarters over for me when I want to come up beside her, but I would like her to be less tense when she does it. I think maybe a lesson of just repeating it over and over.

I was rubbing Darcie while she ate, after putting headstalls on them both and putting the lead ropes into the hitching rings.

Then I let Orion just stand there while I gave Darcie some practice at backing up. Where we do it is not ideal because in places it's not really wide enough and I need to keep her straight, but we get by. Better than not doing it.

So we did all four back up methods. Tap the air (etc.), wiggle wave, marching, and yield quarter then jiggle rope/clip. Rubbing her with hands and with stick in between each move.

I'm rubbing her all over her head, over and around her eyes, around and on her ears, on her nose, etc. She does like her rubs.

Also rubbing her with the stick all over including up to the ears and she's much better about it now.

After we'd done that I could see she was ready for more so we did Changing Eyes. She's still a bit quick but did go into a walk after a little while. Possibly we needed to do some more work before, some LFR or something like that. But it was OK coz I wanted to work on this, also I want her to know it's OK for her to just walk when she's NOT tired. Anyway I think that reviewing yielding quarters and forehand was useful as we were getting the movement I wanted more easily than before. Not perfect but then she's been getting trained only here and there, which is not ideal (but again, better than nothing).

She was starting to flex into the circle quite well although we are still working on bringing the forehand in. She was starting to stretch her neck downwards a time or two which I was quite pleased about, as it was showing greater relaxation, and it helps to lift her back and engage the quarters, especially if the forehand is in a bit and she's putting the inside hind under her body. We are getting a bit of that here and there.

Moving into yielding hindquarter got smoother as we kept going. Not ideal yet, but we were getting some nice consistent crossing of the inside hind across and in front of the outside hind. Not all the time but better than it was.

Then moving the forehand over was pretty good, although she came a bit close a time or two. I just tapped her on the front if she was too close, just softly, she didn't need any more.

I'm still working on handling stick and lead smoothly, with changing hands over while taking in a bit more lead for the hindquarter yield and passing stick into other hand, and so on, and not tripping over the lead or getting the dangly end too long and so on.

I've been doing a bit of desensitising her to the movements of me changing things over since she was thinking it meant to go faster.

After we'd done that and were getting it reasonably well, I did "slap and tap" with her. When I changed sides we did "changing sides" with the movement of putting my hand under her jaw and moving it across, then pushing her over with my hand movement. The first time wasn't too great so we did that a few times until it was going smoothly.

Then we did "run up and rub" and she really isn't too worried by that at all now. Even from a ninety degree angle, and hopping and jumping up to her. She's not totally unreactive - couple of times showed a little tension - but she's pretty darn good and was not moving at all.

Then Nola came up with her new(ish) horse, a tall TB that I found out today is by Danehill. Only he was too slow for racing. :) She said he's going well - he's a bit more "looky" than Darcie or Orion.

While we were having a chat, Orion got his lead rope hooked under one of the brackets of his feed bin and it ended up dangling on the lead rope, moving up and down when he moved his head. He backed up a little and had a good look but he didn't do any more than that. I went and rescued him. Thank heavens for calm horses.

Nola and I all let our horses go at the same time - 'twas handy to have someone there to do the gate, it's not a well behaved gate and swings open if it can, so you have to hold it while doing it up, and being a chain, it takes two hands to do it up. When holding two horses at the same time, you have to kind of put one foot on it to stop it swinging, use both hands to do it up while balancing there, and have the lead ropes kind of draped over your "up" leg. At least that's what works best for me. So it was handy to not have to do all of that.

As usual, after letting mine go, I went back to the car and collected a bucket with a little bit of feed and went back to them. They were waiting for it. Greedy Darcie stuck her head in and Orion could not get his in! I had to wiggle the bucket away from Darcie so he could have a go.

Nola commented on how much Darcie has grown, both upwards and outwards. She really is looking more mature now. She's actually got a bit taller than I had been expecting, I must measure her, as I think she may be a little over 15hh at this stage. Or I could be just used to Wart who is 14.2!

A quick visit turns into an enjoyable activity

Before I talk about the horses, I will mention that we bought and installed a new shed ... and now I have a tack shed! Yay! The horse gear is being stored there and not in the back room, on the back verandah, in my car, and diverse other places. Also big dog stuff is in there, like dog crates. It was a bit of a job to put together but not too bad.

It's near the gate to the carport which is really convenient for loading and unloading. And an added benefit is that it improves the privacy from the neighbouring property.

Today we went to the horses on the way back from doing some quick Christmas Eve shopping to fill a couple of "pressie gaps". Just a couple, low stress. I went to the nearby shopping centre as it has an ABC shop. It's a new shopping centre and quite a nice one, not like the run of the mill centres, is more pleasant to be in. And it wasn't too crowded while we were there.

The horses are not far from it so we went straight there afterwards.

Wart doing well in the spelling paddock still. Happy to see us.

Was going to just bring out and feed the other two, and measure Darcie for a new rope halter that's made to actually fit her, but Ellie hopped on Orion bareback and we all went for a walk. Darcie was a wee bit boggly at first but not for long.

With Darcie I practiced leading with her in a good position, and having her respond to me pointing my arm forwards by speeding up. I didn't have a stick with me so just flooped her with the lead rope end if I needed to.

We went to the place where there are some little banks and drop-offs and Ellie was riding Orion up and down them.

I put our "sending exercise" to good use, by sending Darcie up and down them. We started at an easy place and went to a more challenging place. When we got to the challenging place Darcie started to play! She was pigrooting and jumping about a bit in a playful way after jumping up the bank. She didn't look stressed at all - I think she was just having fun.

Oh and I didn't have the stick with me so I just broke off a little bit of a weed that grows kind of straight, and has leaves sticking out of it, looking sort of like a feather duster and about the same size, and used that as an indicator. It was a cue only, never touched her. She knows the exercise pretty well now.

The first couple of times she wanted to keep going around me and do the full circle but I bumped the lead rope a few times to stop her from doing that, and she soon figured it out.

After she did it a few times she found it a bit less exciting and was going up and down in a more sedate way.

We also did a bit of desensitising, just as a part of the whole thing ... a bit of "slap and tap", also getting her used to me jumping up and down beside her - first a bounce with a bit of distance, then jumping, then getting closer - and also having the rope dragging along underfoot - this is something she was worried about the very first time but now she takes little notice.

I would say we didn't do a formal "training session" as such, but did just work things in to our visit, and put some of our learned exercises to use in new environments and with new challenges.

Ellie told me that she wants to teach Orion some groundwork, partly to give him more of a workout as she's seen the lunging exercises particularly gives them some work to do, and Orion is still looking a tad fat. I tried an unused full size rope halter on him and it fits him really well - much better than the off the shelf one I've been using with Darcie fits her. It's purple which Ellie thinks is a bit girlie for Orion and would suit Kallie the Pally, his half sister, better, but they will cope.

A blow up, and some desensitising

Well today we had a blow up. Or Darcie had a blow up.

We'd gone to see Wart first as usual. Zante was funny because she didn't understand at first to run alongside the car in the big paddock, while we were driving around looking for Wart. But she got the idea after I drove with the door open a bit, talking to her, then talking to her out the window.

Anyway we had the horses tied up and eating, and I was about to pick out Darcie's feet, and I decided that her chestnuts were kind of overgrown and that I should pick them off smoother. Well I learned something, and that is, horses might pick their feet up when you squeeze their chestnuts, but then if you want to pick the old skin off them, they still think you want to pick the feet up, and they can get antsy. So that is a technique I'll not be using again. Instead I will desensitise her to touching and picking at her chestnuts.

So, she was antsy and I wasn't going to stop handling her chestnuts until she stood still. Then Ellie, right near Darcie and to the rear of her, tripped over something. Darcie spun a bit and her quarters hit into the rail. By this time she was feeling pretty trapped, and she jumped over towards me. I can't have her jump into me so I swatted her butt. She was really blowing up by now, wanting to escape, and I thought for a moment that she was going to leap over the chest rail of the tie stall. Instead she pulled back, and the tie ring did its job - she pulled a length of the lead out of it, but then stopped pulling back and came forwards again. It all took less than a minute.

I took her back into the tie stall but she was too hyped for me to pick out her feet, and so I started a little desensitising there, since she'd blown up there, she needed to be desensitised there, but she was too hyped for that too. So I took her out to where there was more space and did desensitising to the plastic bag on the stick. At first she was very jumpy at it, even though she's met it a few times now, but then she settled. I wasn't being timid with it, I was flapping it past and on her body with some vigour. Sort of flap up, brushing her on the way past, flap down, brushing her on the way past, and so on. Anyway we did that all over her body and legs up to near the top of her neck. By the time we got to her head she just stood there for most of it, but when it got to the top between and blowing over her ears, she started to toss her head, so we kept going with that area, first on one side and then the other, until she stood there calmly.

So then we did tap and slap, and she was as jumpy as anything at that. Xia was not helping here at all. I was firmly patting Darcie behind the wither, with rhythm, and not stopping while she was moving, and she was going around and around in circles, and Xia was wanting to get in on the action, and was doing what she could to keep Darcie moving. I told her to leave it and she basically ignored me, so I told her to leave it and gave her a boot and she ran back for a couple of seconds and then came back in again (yes, her family work cattle as well as sheep, and a bit of a boot from me was nothing to her when she was hyped - ack, hyped horse and dog) and I couldn't stop patting away at Darcie because that would have taught her that moving away gets the patting to stop. So I didn't wait for her to stop for fifteen seconds, I grabbed a momentary stop, and went after Xia, and she ran to the car, and I got her by the scruff and basically shook her a bit and yelled in her face. After which she was my good little doggie (I's your good doggie) and stayed in the car. Also later when I wanted her to lie down she dropped like a stone and stayed down. Not timidly, oh no, but she was doing what I wanted without the "what's in it for me?" look that she gets. Kelpies. They will push you sometimes. I am just so not used to being tough with a dog - you would NEVER do anything like that with one of the Vizslas. But they would not be as driven and disobedient either.

Ack. Anyway.

So after the Kelpie stopped zooming at Darcie's legs and circling her incessantly, I was able to focus on the horse more, and we were able to get her standing and relaxing for the tap and slap, but it took a while, and when I changed sides, she was just as jumpy as she'd started on the first side. This was in contrast to the first time I did it, when she was much quieter on the second side.

I wanted to do some backing up but I also wanted to take the plastic bag off the stick before we did that, so before I removed it I took her into the stall she'd blown up in (the one that she's photographed in, a few posts back), and did some desensitising with the plastic bag in the stall, both sides. Then I took the bag off.

So then we did backup. Again I had the carrots, and this time I had apple too, all chopped up. I wanted to click and reward her for the backup. I wanted to look for the head to drop but it didn't at all so I clicked and rewarded for a good straight active backup, and I rubbed her head with the stick while she ate the reward. We were doing the "tap the air (etc.)" backup. I found the online TV show clip with the dressage dude useful because CA comes in and the dressage guy's horse is backing up without enough activity, so CA shows him how to get the activity. We went for the activity. Darcie does know the exercise. So I gave her the easy choice, and then if she didn't respond, I went to the hard choice. Basically tap the air, then go straight to a swat of the clip. She's not going back on the tap the air enough - she needs to move back more promptly. Something I can see is that we need to do much, much more backing up. (She is actually better with the other methods, probably coz I use them more, but we could be doing them better.) So it's a time for going back over the foundation moves and getting them all right. Including all the backup methods.

After that we did lateral flexing, and again, I was using a click and reward to tell her, yes that is what I want. She was wanting to look at Orion instead - he was grazing - so she got a couple of bumps with the halter when she was leaning on it. She's not as light as she could be. Sometimes she's light and sometimes she wants to look somewhere else. So I bump her for two eyes when she does that. I should probably do something more, like a back up, give her a reason to keep her attention on me. Yes, that's what I'll do. As soon as she looks away instead of a mild bump, for a bit I'll get her to hustle in a back up or something like that.

Then after the flexing I took her back into the stall and did some more desensitising. Some tap and slap, rubbed her body, rubbed her head, picked up each leg and handled it and rubbed it. Basically took her back to what we were doing when the blow up happened. Then did some more head rubbing for a bit, and then we let them go. I would like to be able to use a "learning tree" (or equivalent) but it's a bit hard to manage on these days when I'm training in the afternoon - or any days really - I can't just stay there for an hour or two after a lesson. And I can't tie her up and leave her and come back later, either. So. I'll have to think about it.

The rope halter was a bit tight in the knot after the pull back but didn't take too much effort to loosen the knot. The reef knot tying the tie ring to the rail needed some more effort to loosen but it came apart OK. There are benefits to tying proper knots. :)

Using the clicker to fine tune our moves

Today during the drive to the agistment, I decided to use the clicker to get the foundation moves better - yielding hindquarters and forehand, back up, flex head and neck to each side, those sorts of things. CA asks for very clear and distinct movements with the feet for the yielding exercises, and these form the basis for more complex exercises. Also I want to work on her backing up with her head lower, and flexing more quickly and lightly, and so on. One big reason I decided to work on these foundation moves was because we are not progressing much with "changing eyes" - she's trotting too much in the lungeing part, and not yielding the quarters easily, and I think it will help to go over the pieces of it before putting it back together.

Ellie didn't come with me today, and the dogs I brought were Cedar (7yo Vizsla) and Pickle (4yo Border Collie). So we didn't have Xia with us, which meant that we didn't do desensitising to dog underfoot! ;)

After we (the dogs and I) went and fed and checked Wart, I brought Darcie and Orion out of the paddock to eat. I trimmed Orion's feet. Then I let him go again.

I had two carrots and no knife so I used my teeth to put the carrots into little pieces. I had a clicker - I always have one or more clickers in the car - but no pockets or treat pouches, so I carried a small number (varying between 7 at first, and then 6 for most exercises, and 4 at the end) in one hand. It was a bit awkward carrying carrot pieces, clicker, lead rope and stick, but I managed. I will get a treat pouch for the carrots. I have one for the dogs but it has dog food smells in it and I don't think it would be nice for horses.

The first thing we did was flex head and neck. Seven pieces of carrot on each side = seven click/treats. Darcie has done clicker work before so it took her pretty well no time to remember what we were doing. Flexing to the left, the main problem was that she flexed as soon as she saw my hand move, which means I can't teach her to give to pressure on the halter. I might have to find a way to block her vision so she learns to give to the pressure and not anticipate on the hand movement. She didn't do it so much on the right, but the right is her worse side (in flexing and also in flexing while lungeing). When we get better on the right, she will probably start doing it on the right, too.

The backup we didn't get right at all. I was waiting for a drop of the head during the backup, at least a little one, but didn't get it. I'm going to have to think about how to do that one. Maybe just click and reward a single step at first, and reward low, and then start asking for more steps.

I was leading her around in between these exercises with the rope hanging a bit and the end dragging, as she's been worried in the past about dragging ropes, but she's getting better now. I keep it up so that she will get better and better about it. At one point, though, her front foot went over the rope, and she started backing up in a worried way when she felt the pressure. (Time to get some hobbles and hobble train her.) Anyway I had a split second to decide how to handle it, and I decided that "run up and rub" was the way to do it, so that's what I did - just ran up to her and rubbed her head. She is used to run up and rub now and she just stood there, and after I rubbed her I took the rope from around her leg and led her forwards again.

The clicker was great in helping to get the correct movement in yield the forehand. The required leg movement is for Darcie to step across and in front with the front feet, while pivoting on the back feet. Initially she did move the hindquarters towards me a little, so I drove them away, but I was clicking for two of the correct steps with the front feet, and it didn't take long at all for her to be doing it right. The clicker just made it all more clear for her. If we'd not done the exercise before I would have clicked for one step, but she does know it enough for me to start on two steps. We did six click/treats on each side.

I did the same thing with yield the hindquarters - again, the hind foot needs to step across and in front of the outside hind foot, while she pivots on the forehand. Again, I found that there was some good consistent improvement in how she was stepping. The clicker makes these things more clear, as it marks a particular moment in time. I was asking for two steps, as with the yield the forehand, as she has done this exercise many times before. A difference between the previous training of this, and today's, is that I was holding the lead in the way that I will hold it when I put it back together into "changing eyes".

Then we did lunging on the small circle at a walk. Again, six pieces of carrot for each side. Going around to the left was easy - she was walking a nice circle and I was clicking for softness and bend. To the right was harder. She is stiffer on that side, more tense, holds her head higher and stiffer, tends to bend less, is harder on the leadrope, and trots more. So I was clicking and rewarding for walking, bend, and a lowered head, with ears at about wither level. We didn't get anything as nice as to the left but we did get improvement.

I decided to end up today by rubbing her head, and clicking and rewarding when she held it low and still and towards me. There is a spot just at and below her eyes where she was moving it. I stood on the leadrope, rubbed with one hand, and had carrot and a clicker in the other hand. She could move her head around and I'd just keep rubbing until she got her head where I wanted, and then I'd click and reward. She was getting better, starting to understand what I wanted. As I was doing it I found a little lump on her forehead about 2cm in from her right eye. So I was right, the reason for the blood in the nostril, and her sudden dislike of having her head rubbed in that area, was injury. I just checked back over the blog and realised it's only two weeks since I noticed the blood. I think I might give the vet a call to ask how long it might be for her head to heal, and whether I should get something for it like DMSO or something. And in the meantime I will rub her higher on her head, which she is fine with.

She was very good about having the halter off when I let her go. I give her a little carrot when it's off. And she waited around while I put stuff away, so I gave her a bit more feed in a bucket. Then I took the dogs for a walk up the alleyway and she followed us, on her side of the fence. I only had grass to give her which was a bit boring, but she kept following, and she did eat it. But when I turned around and walked back to the car with the dogs, she didn't follow in that direction.

Another thing I saw is that she's rounding out and looking like a horse and not a baby, or an adolescent, any more. She still has a lot of maturing to go, though. I'll have to try to get some side-on photos - not easy to do that as if she sees you she tends to come up.

Nooooo! I can't step in muuuuudddd!

It has been a while because various family members have been away this week. But this afternoon we got in another training session.

LOL, when we went to find and feed Wart, we saw Banjo at the gate. Ellie opened the gate and I started to drive in and there over the crest of the hill came a cantering and whinnying Wart! I think he was pleased to see us. :)

I measured him for a rug, using a dressmaking tape, and the funny boy went, oooh what is THAT thing on me???!!?? We think that now he's in the big paddock, he's turning into a brumby.

It was very windy which meant that chaff kept blowing out of the feed bin. But I do think he got most of it. However we made sure we wet down the feeds for Orion and Darcie. Chaff is too expensive to have it spread onto the ground via the wind.

I groomed Darcie and did her feet. She was very good with her feet today. They need trimming, so I'll do that next time. We measured both Darcie and Orion for rugs, and I measured various bits of Darcie's head to have a rope halter made. I was surprised that Wart's size was so close to Orion's size in rugs, as I would have expected him to be smaller than he was. I guess the fat bulks him up a bit.

For Darcie's training, we started with face rubbing. She's been moving her head so I've been making sure that I rub the bits she likes less until she holds it still. Then we started with changing eyes again, but this actually turned into "you CAN go across the muddy bit". We did that until she went over the muddy bit without stopping before it, and without trying to avoid it and get too close to me, and without rushing it. Crossing the muddy bit became a bit of a sticky point (pardon the pun) and was the most challenging part of the training session. I had to basically push her through her resistance. It took a while but we got there. I would not say it was perfect but it was enough and we didn't have all day.

Then we did more "run up and rub", which we had started the previous training session, and she was great. She remembered it from last time and didn't take one single step back, or even throw her head up. She just stood there. She was also good for "skip up and rub" but was a bit weirded out by "kind of jump/hop/wobble up like some semi animated scarecrow and rub", although it didn't take too many repetitions for her to stop moving.

After that we moved to sending exercise and we got some nice calm sending in, through quite a small gap.

Then some more run up and rub, but starting to angle out the side, until I could run from 90deg from her and rub her on the side. She flinched the first time at the full 90deg but didn't move, and that was about it. The hardest thing in that was for her to understand to stand still and not keep moving her hindquarters away and keep her head to me in this exercise. One time I had to keep moving around her and wiggling the rope until she stood still, but she seems to have understood pretty well. Next time will show how well she learned it.

When I got to rubbing her body from a 90deg run up, that seemed to be a good place to practice flexing her head and neck to that side. She wasn't as light as the previous time we did it. Same when I did run up and rub, then head flexing, on the other side. But it has been a week. So I would not expect perfection.

Then we finished up with some more head rubbing, and then some grazing on lead, before they went back into the paddock to be released and have a carrot. Darcie is getting better about holding her head still when the halter is being taken off, which is good.