Retro Update

I meant to include another little tidbit in my most recent update but somehow forgot, even though it was pretty much the most exciting part of this past week...

Quick lunge on Monday

After riding in the ring on Monday I decided to hack JJ in the field. He had been good in the ring for the majority of the ride, but towards the end he seemed to decide there was a monster somewhere nearby that was ready to attack when he least expected it. I tried to regain his attention to no avail. After he danced around a few times I gave up and went for the field instead.

He started out fine in the field just walking around, then randomly he decided the coops in the field were terrifying objects (even though we had wandered the entire field the previous evening). I worked on walking him closer and closer to the coops. He began to settle eventually and I had him walking close to a coop, when he happened to step on a branch on the ground. The branch snapped up, scraping the coop on the way.

Ha.

Up JJ went. All four feet straight into the air. He must have flown a good three feet straight up. I somehow managed to have enough composure to pick up the reins and say "HO". He landed and miraculously didn't take off. Good thing too. His launch threw me enough out of the saddle that if he had decided to take off I would pretty much have body-slammed the coop. But he didn't take off. He stood still and I wrenched my way back to center, took a breath, and laughed. He walked away calmly. I made him circle the coops a couple more times and then headed back to the barn.

After I untacked JJ I lead him back to the field straight to the branch that had caused the previous ruckus. I kicked it into the air in front of him. He flinched and backed off. I did this a few more times, always walking away from him and kicking the branch away from him as I went. Eventually he got over it and I called it a night.

Whew!

One more teensy update. Or long update. We'll see. Anyway while I was riding this evening a German Shepard came barreling out of the woods. The dog (a known friendly dog, although perhaps not the most horse-savvy dog) stopped when he saw us, then began circling JJ. JJ was a little unsure of the creature at first but when he realized it was just a dog he was willing to go back to work. The dog, on the other hand, had other plans. He continued circling and began barking. JJ was very unsure of this... Almost as if to say "what does it want from me??". It was pretty clear the dog was trying to herd us. Sigh. Clearly we weren't going to get anything more done until the dog's owner claimed him, which she did very quickly.

At that point I pretty well lost my motivation to work, so we headed back to the woods. This time I took a smaller side trail to see if I could find a loop. I ended up at the same dead branch covered muddy spot, but this time I was determined to get through it so we didn't have to keep doubling back on our route. JJ was very unsure of the mud and branches, so I got off and lead him through it. Once through he was fine, and I had to lengthen my stirrup by three holes just to get back on, but JJ was awesome the whole time. Whew again!