My Lesson with 2-star PP!

I finally was able to reschedule my lesson with Karen Woodbury, 2* Parelli Professional! I couldn't make it to the lesson I had scheduled weeks in advance because my job scheduled me to work that day from 4:00am-8:00am. No one was available to take my shift and there was no way I would have been able to get home, feed 5 billion animals, get Satin and drive to Micanopy by 10:00am. So I opted to try for another day and I finally made it!

On Thursday I loaded Satin onto the trailer - she's the least claustrophobic horse I've ever met and will climb into anything. Just the other day she was eating hay from an open stall piled high with orchard/alfalfa hay bales when I approached and said her name. She knew she was supposed to back up but instead she literally climbed onto the massive bales until both front feet were two feet of the ground and she had no where to go. She gave up and backed out. Could her lack of claustrophobia be her innate left-brain horsenality, or perhaps all the time I spent playing with her as a foal in the horse trailer, in the shed, the barn, the woods... ? Is confidence a learned behavior or innate? Or can it be both? Hmm.

I got off on a little tangent there. More about the lesson!
We arrived at Karen's farm right on time. Satin unloaded and immediately buried her face in the tall, green grass, filling her mouth as if it were her last supper. She wasn't phased by the new environment and rarely took a moment to check out the surroundings. The grass was so much more important. I let her "adjust" to the new scenery while Karen and I discussed what Satin and I had been doing since our last lesson - our relationship has changed in leaps and bounds due to the simple change of keeping Satin out of my personal space.

We started with the driving game from zone 3 and Karen noticed a few things immediately:
1) Satin had a very difficult time leading
2) I need to mean what I say and say what I mean!
3) Satin has a tendency to "throw" her outside (right) shoulder out - setting herself up to "leave"
4) No impulsion

So what we are to work on for this week:
1) Hindquarter disengagement!!!!!! This is critical since Satin (currently) is constantly thinking about ways to "leave" or pull away and take off running.

2) Point-to-point driving from zone 3 - make sure I don't start walking before Satin. Satin needs to take the first steps. Tap-tap-tap-TAP for impulsion. Mean it when I ask her to "stop"

3) Lots of undemanding time on the right side of Satin since she has trouble looking at me with that eye.

Karen noticed that Satin is a "good learner" as she would literally absorb new information immediately. We licked and chewed at least a dozen times during the hour-long lesson. Lots of blowing and sighing. And Satin fell asleep 3 times! After we would go point-to-point and then stop, she would lick/chew/sigh, then shut down and close her eyes. Karen playfully called it a "thinkity bink", in other words, she was doing some serious digesting! If it were any other trainer they would probably accuse me of drugging Satin - it was pretty bizarre!

We have lots to work on! Our next lesson is scheduled for next Thursday. I have 5 lessons scheduled in advance. So excited!