Today we started the day with a candy cane, to celebrate Christmas Eve. I broke it up into little pieces and left it for her to find with that prehensile upper lip of hers... sooooo cute! I also gave Barn Kitty some treats:
Afterward we did some on-line groundwork-- working on Parelli's Circle Game to teach her to keep moving without having to constantly remind her, then some direction changes and transitions, then lateral flexion and yielding hind- and forequarters. She's getting really good at yielding, today I tried driving with the end of the rope instead of applying direct pressure and she didn''t skip a beat. We also worked on our figure eights... which I think is more of a challenge for me to communicate what I want then for her to do it!
After all that and a good long rest while working on ground tying, I took her into the round pen and mounted up! Today I practiced mounting and getting down from both sides, so if I ever need to mount her from the off-side she won't freak out. At first we just worked on moving forward from leg cues (keeping her going is still a major challenge) and after a while of that I kicked it up a notch by asking her to trot. I DID eventually get a couple of strides of trot out of her but couldn't get her to repeat it, so my friends Ivón and José Luis helped me out a little. Hopefully soon I can teach her the cue and we don't need an assistant, but I can't complain-- this is only the fourth time I've ridden her after all.
Sometimes she gets a little pissed at me for kicking her, pins her ears and then turns around and looks at my foot, it's super funny but I try to act all outraged so she won't try to bite my foot at some point and then I'll have to get really serious. Hopefully she'll figure out that if she just moves forward, the pressure and then kicking will stop. I try to be all discipline but she's just sooooooo good!
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