A New Day … A New Decision
Horses (and animals for that matter) are not too much unlike children. They have their ups and downs and they even have their temper tantrums. There are those that choose to misbehave or not cooperate and those who cooperate willingly; those who are stubborn beyond belief and those who just go with the flow. There are even those those have a past that must be dealt with and those who have no idea what it’s like to have a past and therefore what you (as owner) are teaching them is all new to them.
And we love them all the same – though the ones that are stubborn and less than willing to go along with our ideas & teachings are the ones that are much more of a challenge. The main part of that challenge is breaking down a wall that they have built up so high that you’re wondering how you could ever break it down… and this is the same part that is the most maddening – try as you might, the wall stays up even with all the love and good intentions on our part.
I am talking about my horses here – they are my children for all intents and purposes at this point in my life and probably forever.
Today – we attempted again to load Astar — walking into the pen, confidently, Andy approaches him to get the halter on — Astar wants no part in it. Andy continues his efforts with no success – so I offer to try and I am also met with no success at catching my horse within the small confined space of the square pen he is in. So we made a decision – Astar doesn’t get to go – Irish will go instead.
We decided to take Irish to the clinic so that we will be able to go and learn something and make the most out the money we have put down! =) And I have to say that it was the best decision we could have made. Irish was absolutely awesome! He loaded right up on the trailer (only one small refusal) and we were off. We unloaded him, put his saddle on and joined the rest of the class that had already started.
At first I didn’t really know what I was doing, but I watched, listened and learned. We did groundwork first to get them warmed up and learning a few things that we would later apply in the saddle. After about an hour – we traded out the halters for bridles and I got on Irish. He was awesome! He didn’t really care about all of the other horses in the ring so I truly felt like it was me and him working. And even when he wasn’t exactly sure of what I was asking (neither was I, really) he gave is 100% best.
All in all it was a good day and am happy to say that I am excited about going back tomorrow for the last class and seeing how much we can improve from today!
As a side note: Turns out (according to what my mom found out today in a conversation with Astar) that he thinks he won – she told him that he ought to think about that because he didn’t really win anything.