My in-laws left yesterday morning. It was fun having them around, but it's also nice to get back into my schedule.
Yesterday I had a headache from the time I woke up. I almost called and canceled our lesson with our trainer, but I didn't. I said no more excuses, and if I had to drag myself to the barn I was going.
We worked on lunging and getting Denali to listen to me. That is going to take some time. Even when I was lunging her she'd have her ear on my trainer. After a while I got her ear on me but she seemed confused, after all I'm the fun food lady who doesn't ever make her do any work. By the end we were working well together, but I think it took a good bit of time before she got it that I was actually making her work (*gasp.*)
For a bit my trainer stood directly behind me and literally moved my arms for me. That helped a lot for me to understand where I should be in position to Denali. D did a really good job for me, and by the end I would call it a success. We also worked on "Whoa" and she started getting that by the end. She's been a little lackadaisical about it, but started to get it.
We're doing a lot of things over again with Denali because I want to review what I'm doing with her.
4 comments:
Lunging can be an excellent exercise. When I was first starting Izzy, we did lots of lunging to get her to understand going forward and paying attention. Even today, she goes WTC on voice commands. It's a great skill to have.
Way to go!
Good for you. It's never too late to "start over" with a horse or review things from the ground up. I completely agree with SprinklerBandit: lunging is incredibly useful for both horse and rider. I'm certainly using it to restart Dar and move him past the poor training he had before I got him. He must be going well on the lunge line before I get on him. Most of all, way to go for sticking to it and not talking yourself out of the training session!
Good for you for not cancelling and awesome that you made progress!
Something to remember is "you ride the horse you lead". So if Denali doesn't listen to you on the ground and sees you as the treat lady, she won't listen to you under saddle either, so your trainer is totally right on going back to groundwork.
I have to remember this myself all the time as I tend to let them get away with stuff when I'm tired or just don't feel like dealing with discipline stuff!
Sounds like you are doing everything right and not giving up! :)
I think the BIGGEST bonus you have is the ability to seek help when you need it! I know I do PLENTY of that! :)
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