By Patty Wilber
Chispa and MH came off the trailer barely catchable and very wary November 19th. They are both making progress, but MH is coming along more readily. He is a confident personality, and he is healthy.
Me and MH!
MH now comes to the gate to be haltered! He leads well most of the time, he trailer loads and backs out, in both my trailers. He moves his hip, his shoulder, has accepted a bareback pad, and then a saddle and bridle. He is starting to ground drive. He is unsure about moving sideways, and he likes going right when lunging, but left is a challenge, so we will keep working on that online and move up to free lunging.
MH says. “ho hum. wearing a bare back pad makes me want to take a nap.”
MH wearing a saddle with the same “no biggie” attitude as the bareback pad. Trigger is cheering him on.
His lope when lunging can look beautifully easy and light-footed, or he might cross fire (correct lead in the front, wrong lead in the back). That is because he is still learning about lunging, voice commands, and what the whip is for (not whipping, but signaling). Once he grasps the basics of lunging and changing gaits, the quality of his movement can become a focus.
He is still very wary of his feet. He picks them up just fine when I ask, but is not willing to let me hold them up. I am frustrated by his lack of progress in this area (I mean Clemente, another newbie here, got that figured out in a day or two!), but I know that I just have to keep building our rapport, and let the frustration go.
As soon as he can pick up his feet, ground drive, lunge both ways at all three gaits, and go sideways confidently, I’ll get on him! I’d say early January. Sort of slow, but we did start from very close to zero less than a month ago!
Chispa has been suffering from some health issues and he lacks confidence, big time. He arrived with a neck puncture wound and soreness in both hinds. He finally seemed to have healed up
Besides this slowing us down, he is also a chicken.
Me: “Chispa, your eyes are bugging out of your head, again.” Chispa: “i just have them open really wide to see in the darkening evening.”
He is making progress, though. He might not come to the gate to be caught, but he is not running off anymore! He leads, he loads into both trailers, and backs out. He lunges at a walk on a 14-foot lead in both directions. He can move his hip and shoulder and go sideways a little. He was surprisingly ok with a tarp, but he was petrified of the bareback pad. I put it on, and he was shaking. I turned him loose, and he hippity-hopped in little bucks for quite a bit. The next day, I put it on him in the round pen, and he was shaking, again, but wasn’t as nervous about cinching it up. He did do the humpety humpety act again. And the next day he came up very foot sore. I am very bummed about this!
We have decided to send him to the vet and then probably home to heal up.
Never a dull moment!
Bonus post AND hat post last week! Yeah!
I wonder if Chispa will settle a little once he feels better.