Satin gladly came with me to the arena where I has 5 jumps, barrels, and other obstacles set up to keep her interested. I figured we'd stay away from the circling game without obstacles in hopes that she won't get so upset.
I started walking around the arena with her on the 12' line. We sniffed jumps, knocked some cones over, and just sort of wandered with no intention of doing anything. She started getting sleepy and clearly bored, so I decided to see if she wanted to express herself. It was windy and cold, so I just assumed she would be spunky.
Wrong, again. How interesting.
Instead of trotting excitedly behind me, after two trot steps she stopped. I stopped with her, allowing her to lead the play session. She sniffed the ground and laid down. I chuckled. Was she not feeling well? She just laid there on her side. So I pet her and listened to her gut sounds. All fine.
She decided to get up and we walked around again. As soon as I asked her to follow me at a quicker pace, BAM, she lay down. Was she trying to tell me that this is what I want to do? Was she pretending she had a belly ache to get out of exercising? I wasn't sure, so I sat with her.
She did this one more time, again immediately after asking her to trot. As soon as I took her off the line she felt fine trotting. How interesting...
She jumped a few things, but mostly just clobbered the obstacles then looked at me like "That's what I supposed to do, right? Kill it?"
Ah, my horse. Not sure what I am supposed to think. Not sure when I am supposed to be firm and ask her to move on. Not sure she's secure and confident enough to be okay with that. Feeling very unsure!
Ah well, we are still moving forward. The good news is the new joint supplement seems to have really made a significant improvement to her popping joints. I am VERY surprised to see such an improvement after only 30 days, but it is definitely there. No buts about it.
On a side note, Dancer has been watching me play with with boarder alpha mare and is getting very interested. She has been more curious and has even shown signs of dominance over the alpha mare - very unlike Dancer! Maybe she's gaining confidence in herself and in me as her leader.
1 comment:
I would be flattered if a horse felt comfortable laying down even if it was a a very creative way of saying "nah" :) She is definitely communicating with you so that is a good thing right?
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