Today
i've taken today off work.
will clean up a bit in the house, then head out to beejah. dunno about other plans, i'll decide on the run. take a candle, just in case.
Monday was an interesting beejy day. for the first time in bloody ages he reverted back to hyper silly redhead. he did NOT visit beejyland tho, which is always a huge plus, and every day i am thankful for whatever intangible strings that keep him attached and present and *here*.
he was in a bad mood from the start - i could see it in him in the paddock. he was staring off into space and not interested at all in me, or even his neighbour Raj. He eventually wandered over to say hello when i got to his paddock, but he gave little more than a cursory kiss and wandered off to do his own thing. he stared into space the entire time i was picking up poo too.
when leading him out of his paddock, he was quite concerned about events far off in the distance, so i led him around the back paddock a bit. it was difficult to let him be too independent as he had his 'bathers' on & not his rope halter & training lead. i only had about 3'6" - 4' of rope to work with (for some reason my leadrope is fucking small). he didn't PANIC but he was certainly very concerned. we did some yielding and some very small circle game, but it was a tad difficult with the stupid leadrope.
led him back to my tackshed & swapped over into his 'working' halter, haha. he relaxed a lot as we got close to my shed (his ultimate comfort zone).
still, very concerned about things & never *really* relaxed. this would be one of those days you just don't ride - he just CLEARLY was not in the mood. we worked thru the games, but he was always about 20% worried about outside things, especially when we moved out of his comfort zone (away from my shed).
i also was a bad mama and overfaced him. i remember the exact moment when he stopped trying and started getting shitty - during sideways game (and i am fucking awful at this - katy helped, but i def need some more instruction to make it a much smoother experience for all around) and i was using the carrot stick as 'phases' of pressure & he just was not responding to phase 1 or 2 or 3 & i would get to phase 4 and give him a bop, and it was the difference of a STEP - it just got too hard for him & he stopped trying.
does that make sense?
in the past he may have turned on me, or put on *evil eyes* or reared and struck out, but this time i just saw him sort of switch off.
he was still THERE and not visiting beejyland, but he was like a little kid who's had a tanty at someone tryna help them do something. "YOU do it then!"
that sort of thing, does that make sense?
at this stage his distraction increased to maybe 30-35%, so i got him to do a few more sideways steps & then we practiced stopping/starting/stayingoutofmummy'sspacewhenshe'swalking and doing some extreme bending around the poles (very fun & he likes it) but again i had to have a lot of energy with the carrot stick to stop him from running me over or past me.
VASTLY different energy to what you guys saw in the vid i posted on the weekend. this was definitely a "back the fuck up" sort of energy, but because he was not 100% in the mood he didn't give me the "YES MA'AM" response he has been over the past month or so.
anyway. he worked a bit better as we got closer to his 'comfort zone' (again, about a 20m distance, so not much).
i'm not to fussed about this, but it WAS interesting seeing him like that again after a month or so of totally responsive & awesome pony. maybe there was something in the air? ghosts or something.
will clean up a bit in the house, then head out to beejah. dunno about other plans, i'll decide on the run. take a candle, just in case.
Monday was an interesting beejy day. for the first time in bloody ages he reverted back to hyper silly redhead. he did NOT visit beejyland tho, which is always a huge plus, and every day i am thankful for whatever intangible strings that keep him attached and present and *here*.
he was in a bad mood from the start - i could see it in him in the paddock. he was staring off into space and not interested at all in me, or even his neighbour Raj. He eventually wandered over to say hello when i got to his paddock, but he gave little more than a cursory kiss and wandered off to do his own thing. he stared into space the entire time i was picking up poo too.
when leading him out of his paddock, he was quite concerned about events far off in the distance, so i led him around the back paddock a bit. it was difficult to let him be too independent as he had his 'bathers' on & not his rope halter & training lead. i only had about 3'6" - 4' of rope to work with (for some reason my leadrope is fucking small). he didn't PANIC but he was certainly very concerned. we did some yielding and some very small circle game, but it was a tad difficult with the stupid leadrope.
led him back to my tackshed & swapped over into his 'working' halter, haha. he relaxed a lot as we got close to my shed (his ultimate comfort zone).
still, very concerned about things & never *really* relaxed. this would be one of those days you just don't ride - he just CLEARLY was not in the mood. we worked thru the games, but he was always about 20% worried about outside things, especially when we moved out of his comfort zone (away from my shed).
i also was a bad mama and overfaced him. i remember the exact moment when he stopped trying and started getting shitty - during sideways game (and i am fucking awful at this - katy helped, but i def need some more instruction to make it a much smoother experience for all around) and i was using the carrot stick as 'phases' of pressure & he just was not responding to phase 1 or 2 or 3 & i would get to phase 4 and give him a bop, and it was the difference of a STEP - it just got too hard for him & he stopped trying.
does that make sense?
in the past he may have turned on me, or put on *evil eyes* or reared and struck out, but this time i just saw him sort of switch off.
he was still THERE and not visiting beejyland, but he was like a little kid who's had a tanty at someone tryna help them do something. "YOU do it then!"
that sort of thing, does that make sense?
at this stage his distraction increased to maybe 30-35%, so i got him to do a few more sideways steps & then we practiced stopping/starting/stayingoutofmummy'sspacewhenshe'swalking and doing some extreme bending around the poles (very fun & he likes it) but again i had to have a lot of energy with the carrot stick to stop him from running me over or past me.
VASTLY different energy to what you guys saw in the vid i posted on the weekend. this was definitely a "back the fuck up" sort of energy, but because he was not 100% in the mood he didn't give me the "YES MA'AM" response he has been over the past month or so.
anyway. he worked a bit better as we got closer to his 'comfort zone' (again, about a 20m distance, so not much).
i'm not to fussed about this, but it WAS interesting seeing him like that again after a month or so of totally responsive & awesome pony. maybe there was something in the air? ghosts or something.