May 14, 2013

On Saturday I asked Rich to assist me with Linus. Since I ride in a large open field, I wanted someone present for our first ride after his mouth was worked on. He should be able to truly focus and we should be able to get some real mounted training accomplished. But we quickly realized that Linus is afraid of men.

To date the only men that have tried to handle Linus have been the ferrier and the vet. Linus melted down for both, but we assumed it had something to do with the ferrier smelling of burning hoof and the vet smelling like a vet. Turns out this may only be a portion of the problem.

Generally Linus trots up to me when I enter the field, and all but shoves his nose into his halter. He wuffles my hair, and lays his head on my shoulder, thriving on attention. But when Rich entered the gate into the field, Linus began snorting and keeping a good distance while dancing around, never letting his eye leave Rich. It took a few minutes for me to get a halter on Linus and bring him up, but whenever Rich approached Linus became utterly terrified.

Rich being the champ he is, spent nearly an hour socializing with Linus. He walked him all over the barnyard and held his feed bucket for him at feed time. By the end Linus was walking on a lead nicely, although a little behind Rich.

Needless to say, we did not attempt riding.

Rich enjoyed working with Linus, and has offered to continue it until Linus is comfortable with him. He said it was rewarding to see Linus improve and he likes Linus’s personality, just not his name.

May 9, 2013

My ponies are so good. Today is the first day this week it hasn’t been dumping buckets from the sky. Which means I got to spend some much needed pony time after work. Simon and I got in a nice hack. Lots of circles and just general hacking. Then we did some side passing over the length of a  jump pole and backing through an L shaped formation of jump poles laying on the ground.

The entire time I was brushing, tacking, untacking and sponging Simon, Linus was woofling my hair and laying his head on my shoulder. He is such a sweet thing.

Linus hasn’t been worked since last Thursday, and was eager to be groomed and tacked up. He loves the attention. I started him off on the lunge line and we picked right up where we left off a week ago. He happily walked, trotted and halted by voice command. He even showed more confidence than last week. Next I spent some time doing basic ground conditioning, leading him around, climbing on the mounting block at his side and jumping up and down while petting his ears and pulling on his mane. I did this on both sides, patting him all over, flapping the irons, rocking the saddle and lots of jumping around and whooping. Followed by good boys and reassuring pats. I also did some softening on his mouth with the reins, getting him to drop his head. Just general ground work.

I wanted to get on him, but no one was around, and since I ride in an open field, I would like someone to be around when I get on him. Hopefully that will work out Saturday afternoon.

Afterwards he sponged off like a champ and followed me around until I put dinner out. What good ponies.

May 7, 2013

Linus ended up getting about 3 weeks off while I got the vet out to sort his teeth, while he was healing up from the extraction and while I was getting Simon ready for MA1.  But last week was re-start Linus week. 

I started each day by tying him up and giving him a good grooming, hoof picking, etc.  He is already good at being tied and groomed, but I wanted to reinforce this and start off on a good note with each session.  Next I tacked him up, which he is also comfortable with.  Even if I am not going to mount up, I feel that tacking up makes it clear that this is work time.  I took him to a different area of the field each day and lunged him. 

His lunging is rather rough.  I suspect at one time it is possible he was just chased into gates in a roiund pen.  I do not think the person I got him from was working him in this manner, but she only had him briefly and reworking this practice takes some time and consistancy.  I want to develop a proper controlled and comfortable lunge foundation for Linus in addition to developing voice commands and hand signals.  So basics up.  We are in no rush. 

I took him back to lunging from the ground up.  I led him on a long line, and let some distance grow between us.  I rotated my body towards him, slowly moving into a facing him position, continuing to let the gap between us grow.  While doing this I continued to walk in a circle, moving myself more and more into a lunge position and holding my back arm up, almost in a whip like position, towards his flank.  He quickly began a moving in a small lunge circle around me, and after a few nervous attempts to “bust off” he relaxed and began to walk properly around me.

The first day we primarily worked on walk and halt commands, and developing a calm demeaner where he could feel relaxed enough to learn.  The second day we continued walk and halt and added in trot, with a lot of transitions up and down.  Linus was much more relaxed and trusting and quickly started where we had left off the day before.  The third and forth days we continued to work on his paces through trot, and he continued to improve. 

He is such a pleasant pony.  He is eager to please and happy to learn. But he does have some fear, and he gets nervous so it is important to me to develop a strong level of trust between the two of us.  He is particularly fearful of whips, so I have been working without a whip at this point.  I will add a whip slowly, because I feel it is important for horses to have respect for whips, but not fear them.  Plus I’ll hopefully be starting him on games in the future, which involves whip like flags!  But for now I want to work on his basics and trust. 

This week it is rainy, and I have not worked him in a few days.  But it will clear up eventially and we will get his studies back underway!