After posting yesterday's blog entry, I realized that probably some of you were thinking, "Why would she ground-train Kitch? He seems like such an accomplished old horse." Well, he is, but he's also a big boy and we struggle with respect issues. The only time I've ever needed to do ground work with him was last fall he nearly ran me down charging out the pasture gate after the mares. I didn't know really what to do, but I did know that was a huge safety issue and I needed to do something to remind him of who is the boss. I caught him and took him straight to the round pen, where he ran around me a few times and then hooked up and followed me quietly back to the gate, which we walked in and out of several times, until he could do it right. I realized at that point that the ground work helped a lot and it didn't take much of it to get his attention. On the way home Sunday evening, I decided that since he seemed so responsive to ground training during that episode, Kitch would be a good 'guinea pig' to test out my newly learned skill. Now, I've seen it work and I'm more confident and ready to work with Lily & Tillie.
I was so impressed with Chris Cox's clinic on Sunday, because the whole point of disengaging the hindquarters is to get their eyes on you! I've been wanting to take Kitch on my walks up the road since he's getting terribly fat just standing around in the pasture, but I couldn't take the chance of him pulling or pushing on me and hurting my back. After that simple little lesson we had yesterday afternoon, I was able to take him for a walk up the big hill and back down again without any issues, at all. Just amazing!! He didn't even try to hurry past me going back down the hill and towards home. This is how Kitch acts after I've worked with him several days in a row, not after just one....And he was huffing & puffing just as much as I was when we got to the top! ;-)
I'm sure that my sister is sitting there reading this thinking, "I told you so!" She has long been telling me that I should do more ground work with all of my horses, but I've always been too confused and therefore I've never been able to get the results I was looking for when I tried it. That would make me terribly frustrated, and those lessons never ended well. Therefore, it's always been a whole lot more fun to just hop on and go for a ride, even knowing that it could be a better ride if I just learned how to get their respect better on the ground. So, D, enjoy it while you can - YOU WERE RIGHT!!!!
A couple of weeks ago, our youngest came home with a registration form and announced that he wanted to play basketball. This was surprising because each season we ask them if they want to join the school teams (football, soccer, etc) and they always say, "No!" Even though they do enjoy playing the games whenever they have a chance. We haven't pushed them since sports are such a huge time commitment. I signed him up and asked his older brother if he wanted to play too, but he said that he really didn't. Last night was the first practice. It turned out that big brother didn't like just sitting there watching and since the team needed another boy, he's playing basketball this season too! They came home drenched in sweat and grinning from ear to ear!! Even the little guy made a couple of baskets and he couldn't have been more proud!!
2 comments:
Awesome to hear that the boys are playing bball. It should be fun for them!
Haha!! I'm just really happy you had the chance to see it for yourself! It's much more effective than me trying to express how well it works. There's nothing like first-hand experience! That's great that the boys are giving b-ball a try...that'll be fun!
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