Longeing Video

Here's a video of us longeing today (thanks to barn buddy Selina), Starbuck did really well! Although we need to work on her listening to all of my cues the first time (she does well with "trot" but "walk" and "stop" take some repetitions and heavy duty body language), I can really see how much she's progressed in the more or less two months we've been working together (check out our first video if you don't believe me!).  She's also responding really well to my new stricter leading policy (no grazing unless I say so and if she comes forward past my shoulder she has to take 2 steps back), so I feel really encouraged about possibly being able to ride her soon, although I think we still have a lot of work to do first.

I'll be taking a few days off from Starbuck and the blog to do a horseback excursion in the Gredos Mountains with the fabulous horses and people of Gredos Ecuestre for a few days.  These are the same folks I did the Camino de Santiago on horseback with and one of my long-term goals for Starbuck is to be able to trailer her over to the Península and either do the Camino again or do a five-day trip around the Gredos Mountains with them.  Maybe in a year or two....