Day 8 Our first adventure out of the barn!

We walked out of the barn and across the driveway to the horse trailer. I preceded to load her in, she gave one little pause and jumped right in. She was very calm. We did this seversl times and she was really at ease with it.

We then headed to the round pen. To get there we had to go through a gate and across a pasture to the pen. She was right at my side the whole time. Leading and focusing on what I wanted and not wanting to run or bolt away.

The round pen was a lot soggier than I had hoped, so I didn't get to do as much work as I wanted. We did some lunging and turning. She would stop as soon as I gave her the signal, which was body motion, voice and a little tension on the rope.

From there we Went to the riding arena. We worked on fore hand turns and haunch turns. Also some lunging. She only tried to get away one time. She always stops when the rope tightens. From there we went to the trail coarse. Which is in the pasture were the weanlings and our minature horse are. She was doing so good I just had to see how far we could go. The first opstical was the bridge. She walked up to it, gave one little hesitation and then walked over the bridge with no concerns about it. We did that several times. We then walked through some cones and then backed through them. Then we put all three opsticals together. No problems. All this time she had the other horses greeting her and watching. She just stayed focused on the task at hand.

I am always wanting to see how much more I can get out of her- we went to the pasture gate by to road. We stood there waiting for a car to go by. When the first pickup came by she wanted to back away, but came forward when I asked her. When she couldn't take it anymore she turned to run, but when the rope got tight she turned and came back to me. We went back to wait for another car. Each time she got better. I did that for an hour. It was fun! It was raining, but we just bonded. We just waited for cars, me with my arms over the gate with my head resting on them and her with her head resting on the gate right next to me. I sure wish Lisa had been around to get a picture of it.

If it doesn't snow too much tonight, I plan on her and Dino going to the beach on Sunday.

It was a wonderful 3 to 4 hour session that I spent with her that afternoon. She will make a kid a great horse. Her personality it very sweet, she wants to be trusting.