Two bucks – No worries!

I decided after waiting all day for the 11am rain shower that hadn’t appeared by 3pm that I was going to go out and work with Louie.  I went out and yelled for him and he came running – that’s a good feeling :)  I got him out and put him on the cross ties.  He has a tendency to pull back so I was a little nervous about doing this but just approached it with a “who cares” attitude.  He was pretty good about it and didn’t get all high headed on me at all.  I’m starting to think he likes me!

I ran a brush over him quickly and he seemed to enjoy it – this is the same horse that would bite me for trying to brush him when he first got here!  Then I grabbed the saddle and tacked him up – he was a little fidgety about that but that is normal for him, although again there was no trying to bite me!  I put the bridle on him and then tied up the reins so they were out of the way – I wanted to lunge him before I climbed on and was thinking that maybe I wouldn’t climb up there at all but we’d see.

We walked out to the pen nice and calmly – I’ve noticed that if I stop anticipating him exploding, he seems to just not react.  I got him in the pen and snapped the lungeline onto his bit (I have one of those connector strap things) and sent him out – there was no typical antics from him, he didn’t even toss his head he just listened to my voice commands and *gasp* did what I asked!!!  He even switched directions with a simple “whoa” and switching hands with the lunge whip!  I think a sane horse has invaded his brain!!

I decided since he was being so good about it that I’d climb on and just work for a few minutes – it was starting to rain!  Why does that happen?  The hourly forecast said showers at 11 – and we had nothing but some clouds until I decide to go work with the horses.  I snugged up the girth and put my foot in the stirrup – I have a hard time getting on short little Buddy from the ground and Lou’s got at least a hand on Buddy so there was no way I was getting up there!  I took him out on the lawn to use the picnic table. 

Now I know how simple this sounds, but trust me, for this horse this part is truly amazing to me!  I stepped up onto the bench and asked Louie to step up in front of me.  He was a little too far away so I asked him to move up a step and then laid the reins on his neck and said “over” fully expecting to have to get down and push him over towards the table, but he stepped right up to me!!  I told him he was a good boy and just said “STAND” put my foot in the stirrup and hopped up!!  Simple as that!!  We all know by now that mounting is my most anxiety stricken activity – when Louies owner told me “he doesn’t stand well for mounting” I about had a panic attack – WHAT?  How am I going to get on him?  LOL No worries I guess. 

I took him back to the pen and we just were casually walking around, he started fighting me along the backside and kind of grunted and tossed his head – I told him to quit and made him work a couple circles and then he was happy to walk nicely along that back side.  We had a couple more issues with him not wanting to go where I was steering him but nothing major and nothing that made me feel uncomfortable.   I asked him to trot along that back side and he did this head tossing sideways bunny hop bucking thing, the only thing that scared me was that my reins caught the horn when I went to pull his head up so it took me a second but I didn’t have any of the heart pounding hand shaking anxiety that I’ve had in the past. I just got his head up, turned him in a circle and then made him trot trot trot along that fence.  After that he was fine for a while – he started to kind of trot sideways a while later, which I then turned into side passing and after I made him side pass halfway across the pen he decided that walking forward was much funner than going sideways anymore!  Hehehe.

The second “buck” came in when he decided he was done – He headed for the gate and I turned him away and made him trot away from the gate area – he did this head toss started to buck and made this sick whinny sound – I couldn’t help but laugh.  He sounded so pathetic. I just held his head and pushed him into a little faster jog.  Easy as pie!!  I have no idea why I feel so much more relaxed on him now, but I am going to stick with some “arena” work with him until I’m confident that we have the basics down.  I’m one that believes the best training is trail miles but in this case, I don’t feel safe taking him on a trail until we have some of these kinks worked out – maybe with a few more rides and then with some company I’ll give it a try but for now, I think that we’ll stick to the pen and the pasture.

When I went out to do chores I decided to try to clip Louies bridle path.  He hates to have me even TOUCH near his ears so I figured I was in for a fight but he was a mess!!  I turned the clippers on and he tried to sniff them – I let them touch his nose and not even a twitch!  He let me trim his whole muzzle no issues.  So I thought HA!  He’ll be fine – wrong.  He gave me a bit of a fight but in the end I won with very little trouble.  I had to stand on a bucket to reach but eventually he gave in and he has a nice, pretty clean shaven bridle path now.  :)