So I had a dream last night / this morning about my horse.  Astar and I were at a Parelli playday and there was I sitting on his back in my favorite black western saddle…. he and I were just hanging out with me on his back and he was Mr. calm, cool and chilled out.  Mary Lou (from the group) walked up to us along with a couple of others and smiled, saying “Wow… you’ve got no bridle on him and he’s just hanging out.”  My response was simply, “He WANTS to be with me.  It’s absolutely wonderful!”

And that has stuck with me all day today and put a smile in my heart — He (Astar) WANTS to be with ME =)

Today was a short walk in the field with Astar.  I wish so much that I had more time to devote to him, but I have to take what I can get and do what I can do.  When I walked out today I had cookies, my savvy string and a brush.  I was able to walk right up to him, pet him, brush him and put the savvy string over his neck and then go for a nice little stroll… all while out in the big field!!  Didn’t need the round pen to catch him!  That is progress.

He’s getting to where he acts like he wants to leave and the quickly changes his mind.  It’s so fun to watch!

Thursday, March 25th was a day I will always remember!  My mom was visiting and she was helping me refinish the new conference table for my office.  We brought everything out to the porch and set up to get started working for the day.  I look up and I see Astar coming around the back portion of the round pen, walking AWAY from his friends [the rest of the herd] and he is walking right towards me.  He stopped right in front of the fence, staring right at me and asked me to come out and play!

– If there hadn’t been a fence, I believe he would have continue walking straight up to where I was on the porch. –

My mom says to me “I think Astar wants you to come play with him”… to which I responded “I believe you are right! Oh my gosh!”  So I went inside and grabbed my boots and came back out – Astar is still standing in the same spot, waiting.  “oh, I’ll grab a cookie,” I thought and in I went back into the house to grab a treat for him and when I came out…. still standing waiting for me.  He hadn’t budged an inch!

I walk out to the gate and he greets me there with open arms!  He was ready to play!  I gave him a pet and we walked to the round pen.  His energy was one of eagerness and pure joy… he really wanted to be with ME!

We played for a bit and I even got him to pick up his foot for a few seconds.  I even gave him some hugs and we just hung out.  At a good stopping point, we walked out of the round pen and I melted my way out the gate.  He watched me leave and even walked back over to the pen as if to say “Are you sure we can’t play some more?”

What a HUGE blessing and what a great reward for such a long wait….7 years!  It was soooo worth it!!   What a day!

This one is going to be short because I am unfortunately just now getting to logging this and I don’t remember every detail… it’s 3 weeks later though I’m dating for the date of the training.

So today was quite a victory with Astar! We made some good progress with getting him to just want to be with us.

Jen brought her horse, Tres in with her and played a gentle catching game with him.  Tres and Astar got along beautifully.  Tres was a perfect match for Astar really helping him through some stuff.

The exercise started: I walked around IN the pen and Jen rode Tres on the OUTSIDE of the pen.  The idea was simply to get Astar to stick with us.  He finally did…. after running around for quite some time.  At one point we switched and I came on the outside and she came in the pen with Tres.

One  of our goals was to be able to walk with him, my hand on his withers / for him to stick with us — when we first went in the round pen with him he was not at all interested… and after 2-1/2 hours and help from Tres — we got it!  At first, once I was able to walk with him with my hand on him, I set a goal in my head of being able to walk 1 whole time around — and then we just kept on walking and I stopped counting.  It was beautiful!

Thank you Jen!!

I wish I had video!

It’s official – we’ve gotten our offer accepted on the house we were looking to purchase so we have decided to put our 5 acre farm up for sale.  Click here for description and photo.  If anyone has a friend, family member, colleague, acquantance that might be interested, please forward the link to the page!