Arwen & Arthur

Today I just wanted to do some groundwork with her. No saddle, no bridle, just get our communication down. As much as I sometimes get frustrated with the merchandising of the Parelli system, the games really are a great method of communicating with a horse - especially one you don't know well yet.



So I pulled out my rope halter & lead and after a nice grooming, took Arwen into the ring to play with her. We started with the friendly game, and Arwen had no trouble at all with me rubbing her all over with the carrot stick. So we moved on to the "porcupine" game, and she was slow to pick up moving backwards, but very quick with moving her haunches around, and medium about moving her front end away from the stick. Ditto with the driving game - backwards just hasn't been in her vocabulary yet. :)

We moved on to the yo-yo and it took to stage 3/4 to get her to move backwards. I'll have to say that although I don't like the way a horse lifts their head up high to go back wards when you are first teaching them (having to use the bigger phases), in the long run, being able to wiggle a lead back and forth gently and have your horse move backwards can be very handy, if not lifesaving. She finally started to pick it up, and we moved on to the circle game (our disconnect from yesterday while lunging).

Low and behold, she picked it up pretty dang fast. Even to the right! And after several (once around) circles each direction, we quit with that and I brushed her down and took pictures for everyone to see. :)

The best part of today was that without the saddle, she was VERY calm compared to yesterday's going into the ring. She was just as peaceful as she normally is while grooming her and was not worried about anything. And she seems very smart, and was doing a lot of chewing/thinking the whole time.

Afterwards, Sammie and I got Arthur out for a ride - our first in a few weeks since he developed some facial paralysis. She had a wonderful time - Sammie really wanted to be more involved in steering today (she is only 3, so some days she just prefers a pony ride), and Arthur was the perfect 25yo pony. :) I'm so thankful for him - he has been such a godsend. We also dealt with a small bout of laminitis when the grass came in, so he has been up in a mostly dirt paddock until this last week - he was going out for a few hours, and now he gets to go out at night, and he has perked up a bunch! He really doesn't like being kept away from the herd!



Overall, a very wonderful horsey day so far.