#zoneology

What a horse, what a day!

So much got done today, I feel really positive. I had been feeling like I’d gotten a little side tracked with things and become too focused on this whole circle thing and had become boring. Well today I was anything BUT boring.

I had made a list on the tasks I had yet to complete for Level 2 and decided I’d hammer as many of them out today as I could. And it worked out really well.

Friendly game from Zone 3 has come along nicely and while he still has a favoured side (he keeps trying to put me back in Zone 1 on his right side), he is getting better and better, his head is getting lower and an even bigger plus is that I have inadvertently become able to toss a rope over his head without him even realising what is going on.

Porcupine game was fun. He tried to play back! That’s a development for him. When asking him sideways he often moves only his hind end and pushes into me with his shoulder, so today I got right up to a phase 4 and had my thumb nail dug into his shoulder and he whipped his head around to bite me. He only got as far as his lips touching me before he thought better of it and then moved, followed by a big lick and chew. We also worked some more on lifting and leading by a front foot. I can’t say he’s too impressed with this game either, he plays reluctantly.

Driving game I worked on Stick to me from Zone 2 & 3 and progressed to driving from Zone 4 and even a bit from Zone 5. It was a juggling act moving back and forth between Zone 3, 4 and 5 to accommodate his comfort, and also moving myself wider away from his body and closer in depending on what zone I was in. I didn’t really have any particular place in mind to drive to but eventually of his own accord he followed his tracks around his paddock and I was happy to accept that.

Yoyo game, well I found a small hill in his paddock and we worked on getting him to back up and down the hill. He did surprisingly well and the only real issue he had with it was the tree next to him that suddenly came to life in a gust of wind.

Circling game, we worked on maintaining gait while going over obstacles at a walk, we worked on change of direction at a walk and trot and we worked on canter circles as well, achieving a complete circle of canter in both directions. I am sure he is becoming more and more belligerent on a circle, as well as with the Figure 8 pattern. I shall explain soon.

Sideways I felt was kind of a flop. I need to clear away the debris around the fences as I have no length of fence long enough to work along or to get any speed up. Sideways without a fence I had to break down to small bits and use targets to go to as well. If I tried to expand the distance he’d start moving forward instead which isn’t what I want. However, I’m happy that I made that little discovery and I can work with it next time.

Finally, the squeeze game. THIS was the best of them all. He’s actually quite good with the squeeze and can go between and over a lot of things, so today I changed him up and I squeezed him out of his paddock through the gate! This is an enormous step for me. I have this ever-playing nightmare in my head that he’ll take off on me outside of the paddock and he’ll go off into the bushes, never to be seen again. As it so happened, he didn’t actually want to come out of his paddock. He stood there at the open gate for ages. When I did eventually ask him out, he came out confidently, disengaged to face me and looked around in wonder. He even looked off over the fence to the horses across the way as if to say “hey guys, look at me!” We went in and out the gate a few times and then worked few circles outside of the paddock before going back in.

I finished up with a Figure 8 pattern and this is always where the Left Brain horse shows up. He gets so belligerent. Goes over and around the barrels. Gets halfway around one side (the right side) and then digs his feet in and refuses to make the cross over to the other side. I ended up going right up to a phase 4 and tagging him a good one on the shoulder which sent him into a bit of a frenzy, but I tell you what, he went around that barrel EVERY time afterwards. I also remember Linda talking on one of the videos about more directing Zone 1 in the Figure 8, so I also focused on putting a bit of directional pressure there too to make sure he kept heading where he was supposed to be heading.