Today was an interesting day… full of challenges and this is now my 2nd post in 1 day.  That is a record for me!  We rescheduled Astar’s training for this afternoon and meanwhile, I had challenge after challenge.  Some I was able to tackle and some still have the jury out on them.

So then came Astar — we ARE making progress and Jen assures me that we’re doing great.  I don’t feel so great.  She must have sensed that I might have felt a little discouraged today because she told me several times “don’t be discouraged… we are making progress…”

We attempted putting the halter on and you could see the panic set in.  We almost had it, but I got all tangled up in the strings of the halter, fumbled around and never made it over his nose.  He decided it wasn’t for him.  Since he decided he was going to be upset about it, we made him work by applying more pressure.  By that I mean, we made him trot around in circles [for those of you who do not know, the round pen is the circle I speak of] – if he is going to not be with us then he’s going to work.  The idea is that the pleasant, nice, calm place to be us with us and the place he has to work is when he’s not with us…. the idea is to teach him we’re cool to hang out with.   You get the idea.

Well, he had made up his mind that he was upset for most of the time so he worked.  He also decided that his left side was not where he wanted us — that’s his left confident side.   Finally after about an hour or so (I don’t really know b/c I don’t have a watch) he finally changed his mind and decided to no longer be upset.   We never got the halter on which kind of discouraged me, but Jen reminded me that everything we’re doing is still progress and that we’re teaching him every step of the way that being with people is a good thing.   We ended with hanging out by the rail eating cookies – after he relaxed and made the decision to be with us.

That’s pretty much where we left it… on a good note.

My homework is to work on building his confidence on his left side and keep working with getting the halter on his face.  I know we’re going to get there.  I just have to be patient.

Thank you Jen for continuing to encourage me — you are wonderful!

Life has this way of tossing us challenges, whether we ask for them or not.  Whether you’re an artist, an engineer, a programmer or even a stay at home mom – someone always comes along to push us towards being better at our profession, and proving that we can do whatever it is that they are asking of us.  The times when we fall short are when we are NOT given the honest, sometimes harsh feedback that says “do it better”.  The times I excel is when I am challenged to do a better job or be a better artist or person in general.

When I was in 12th grade, I had an english teacher that everyone, including me, thought was the hardest teacher in school…. and she was for a reason.  Read the rest of this entry »

November 28

So Andy and I went out with the goal to repeat the dance and get it on video so we could share our success.  The only goal of what I was doing with him is to get him to stay with me… stay connected.  You will see I kind of lost him toward the end, but overall he stayed with me.  (By the way, you’ll also hear the commentary from Andy as he tried to video with FanciPants [our other youngin'] as “director”)

I’m also posting videos of some of the other work we did yesterday… we played the friendly game again and he’s given us almost 100% permission to be in his Zone 2 – his neck area.  He still prefers his right side to his left side (this is mainly due to the fact that when he was beaten [by former owners] it always came from the left.  So naturally he doesn’t like people being on his left side.  That’s ok…. we will work up to that.

The friendly game – this is basically a game we play with the horse to get him used to the stuff we’re carrying, like the lead rope, the halter and the  carrot stick string, almost as if they are just extensions of ourselves…. they mean nothing at this point.  It is kind of a desensitization thing for the horse.  Today I was able to swing the string in front of me and still have him come to me.  He wanted to be with me more than going away… it doesn’t seem like much to most, but this takes A LOT of effort on his part so this is real progress…

I think Jen is going to be pleased with our progress with she is here again on Tuesday!  I am excited to show her what we’ve been doing and to learn what direction we need to go in next.

November 27

I was determined that today I would have time / make time to work with my horse.  After shopping the Black Friday sales and going to get another hay roll for the horses, we were finally home and I went out to see if Astar would spend time with me.

Even with a brand new hay roll, he was still interested!  As soon as I walked in the gate, he lifted his nose out of the fresh hay roll and looked at me, he asked me the question — do you want to hang out?  I said, of course! and walked over to join up with him.  We then walked into the round pen together… WOW! That was easy!

So as of today, it has been 2 consistent weeks that he has decided within less than 10 minutes he wants to spend time with us rather than doing whatever he was doing at the time…. that is awesome!  We’re getting back to where we were a year ago and he’s starting to remember the good times we’ve had.

With all of that said, my favorite part of today’s time with Astar is that I danced with my horse!  It was so wonderful and I could almost feel him smiling as much as I was.  He was totally with me!  What do I mean by dancing?  Well, I was walking in tight circles like a figure eight and then moving back and forth… and he was coming right along with me….It was so magical that I’m going to see if I can video it!!

I love Astar… then again, I always have!

November 24-26

It POURED rain for 2 days straight!  So other than feeding in the round corral and walking him in and out of there, not much training really took place and not much time was spent with Astar.

Then it was Thanksgiving and we were on the road traveling all day… so another day off, except for feeding times…. though we’re still making progress.  Andy was able to put the rope over his nose on Thanksgiving night without Astar making a fuss!