Goal of the day: Does she want to spend time with me

Well, for those that are don’t like horses, my advice is that when a Horsing Around Post shows up, just hit delete 🙂 for the rest , enjoy learning and hearing how it goes as I do..

So today we headed over to my pasture, and once we were safely in the big pasture, I unhooked Brandy and let her go, now I will admit here that if she had not already proven that she was a easy catch horse, I might have gone with a extra long lead instead but given that she had meet us at the gate when we went to see her and meet me at the gate that morning, I was not to worried about not being able to catch her.

No, what I wanted to see was if she wanted to be with me, did she want to spend time with me or would she perfer to be at the other end of the pasture, how was she with gates, how was she going to be around me if she didn’t have the lead to help provide control.

Now, while I will flat out say, I am so flipp’n rusty when it comes to reading horse body lang, some things are easy enough to do so, but I need to relearn not just the basic’s but more important, I need to learn my horse.

So off she goes, and the first thing I learn is that she likes to play, I got head bob’s, neck twists, mini rear ups, and she stetched out and went from walk to trot to canter down and back and over in the pasture. She moves easily between the three gaits and I was able to watch her shift between them with ease.

She was making wide cicles around me, then taking off to the far part of the pasture to talk to the horses she could still hear but not see, which was fair enough, but then she would circle back and check in with me..  The first time she came at me in a full trot, I stood and she slowed and stopped in front for a head pat..

Then I started walking about and she played follow the leader , then I started taking her to the different paddocks and smaller pasture, at the gates, she was told to Whoa, which she did, told to Stand, and only after I crossed the gate, and clucked with a walk on, did she cross the gate, and again in each new space, she would go off exploring it, but within a loop or two, she would swing back and check in with me.. I was walking to the far back corner of the small pasture and she swung around the big shade tree and came into a hard canter straight at me, she was clearly in high spirits but there didn’t appear to be any intent, I stood my ground, while admitting that I had better be prepared to move left fast if I needed to.. at about 15 feet away, you could see her collect herself and by 6 to 8 feeet she moved into a trot, and by the time she reached me, it was a dead stop just to the right of me, and then tucked her head down for a pat.

I also groomed her and we played the back game a couple times in a different places, her first back, she gave me a foot or two, but by the end of our last back game, she gave me five or six feet. She understands forward, back, right and left turning, but to date so far, I don’t see any real showing of over or flexabity of being able to turn her head in without the rest of her body following the swing.

When I started my time with her, I had touched her all over and she was good but didn’t trust me enough to give me her tail but by the end of the day just before I put her away, I was touching and leaning on her, and when I went for her tail, she gave it to me and let me pull it out and over her flank..

What she learned: I like her and I want to spend time with her, I don’t want to hurt her and I come with pats, happy voice, and treats!

What I learned: She is good about being touched, she needs to have a refresher course in personal space, but she likes me too, and she does not appear to have a mean bone in her body on a normal natural day.

Goal of the day: Does she want to spend time with me – Success!