At Last!

It seems that Chickory has finally figured out that I'm not a horse eating monster! When I worked her on Saturday I quit the lesson when she let me rub her on the back. Today, it only took a minute to get the rope around her neck, and she worked much quieter- more walking and less loping around the pen. After a few minutes I was able to touch her again, and walk around the pen with her with my hand on her back. She also gave me nice soft steps to the side in response to me holding a slight pressure on the rope. Woo-hoo! She was much more relaxed today. So I let her go, and left the pen with her eating her grain. About 5 minutes later, I went back in the pen; no rope or anything, and she let me rub her back again. After that, I put Peppy back in with her, and reached over him and petted her on the face-first time she let me do that!You can see where she scuffed her face turning into the fence instead of towards me-she doesn't do that much any more.

I'm just so happy with the progress she's made! Taking my time is paying off, and I think that having Peppy in with her is really a calming influence. Maybe our next session I will actually get the halter on her- It'll have to be Wednesday as I have to go run with the bulls tomorrow.(My way of saying work the cattle sale). Penning the bulls can get downright dangerous.

I also started sacking out Peppy today with a feed sack using approach and retreat tactics. He did well; I'm going to have to find a bunch of different things to use for sacking out, and get him walking over and under a tarp. We're thinking about maybe keeping him and making him Ted's riding horse, which means he would be going in parades as my husband is in the North West Mounted Police Commemorative Association- they do lots of parades and historical re-enactments. And since he's going to be a gelding he'll always be available; no time out for raising babies like the mares! We'll see how it goes- someone will probably want to buy him just when he's getting where we want him! So it goes...