Flying Fridges!

I did pretty well in working towards my goals for Sophie this past week, if I do say so myself.

We checked off Intro To Night Riding 101 by getting her out just before dusk one night so we were passed by vehicles with headlights. Now to add my headlamp and her reflective quarter sheet and LED lights to the mix in the actual dark and we'll be good to go!

Rainsheet back on last week with the usual drama because she hadn't seen it in at least a week. I think the quarter sheet will be fine though.

She also had a good visit at Aunty Bridget's School Of Equine Etiquette.

Bridget looked at me like "Why?!" when I put Sophie in her field. She secretly loves her, though and likes the bossy mom role. Sophie is noticibly taller than B now!

Sophie thought it was all very fun and exciting. I'm pretty sure she's contemplating kicking the fence here, but she made the right decision.

I even got back on after however many weeks off. Actually, I got back on twice, the first time without a helper, that's how confident I was that she was going to be s good girl.

Obviously giving her all those weeks off hasn't resulted in any progress, but I'm impressed she's game to pick up where we left off. For the record, in the round pen we're kind of able to walk circles to the left... and sometimes we sort of turn right too! :D The feet get stuck often, so there is a lot of disengaging hindquarters and shoulders to keep her moving. Which for an ammy like me is fine... it's all calm and cool,  please take a step forward here, good girl. No speed demons are required now, we can always speed it up later!

It's a bit easier on the trail, given there's only one path to follow, and it goes home! It's probably sketchy as anything  to ride her there given I have such little steering and questionable braking, but honestly she is already showing a bit of boredom with the round pen/arena, and we want to keep this all fun and positive! In order to mitigate the potential for disaster, my husband accompanies us on foot, and has a lead rope handy! Also, if anything weird were to happen, it's a quiet trail right to the barn so there are no worries about traffic or anything like that.

Sorry for the lack of media- it was pouring rain! Here's a picture of Bridget's ears instead on the same trail.

And finally, our big challenge for the week. I feel like I need to give a bit of a back story here so bear with me a moment. There is a metal recycler guy halfway along the road between the barn and the arena. He's super nice, and lets us use his other property to graze the horses and access the trails. We like him! But, I'm afraid I've not been the best at teaching him about horses. Often he's smashing stuff or driving his forklift or using a grinder or welder or whatever. He used to be nice and turn off whatever machinery he was using and wait for us to go by, but over the years that's been forgotten because he didn't need to with Bridget, and I go back and forth sometimes multiple times a day .

A more normal day at the recyclers, again with Bridget ears. 

So, the other night, I was leading Sophie home, and he was out on the road with his forklift. I think he saw us and tried to back up to give us space, but the fridge he was carrying rolled off the forks and started tumbling towards us. Poor Sophie! Lol, she's already a bit suspicious of him and now he's throwing fridges in our path.

Dramatic reenactment. She's spooking at the neighbour's cows here :)

No worries, he came and scooped it up again, and by now Sophie was fascinated. As we passed by him, that fridge was again teetering on the edge of the forks, hanging over a giant metal bin. He shut off the forklift, which I thought meant he was letting us pass. Except no, we were barely past when he simply pushed that thing by hand into the bin. You can imagine the noise a fridge falling from about 5 feet in the air, into a bin of metal makes. About 20 feet behind us, too  :D

If this guy can't bombproof my horses for me, no one can. He should be charging big bucks for the extreme despooking clinic :)

In all fairness, he'd 100% stop or wait if I asked...but for a few years now I've kind of been of the opinion that it's free training and I've been expecting the horses to just deal with it, and they haven't let me down yet.

Bridget couldn't give a flying fridge about any of it.

So there you go, we got stuff done and even have a The Tale of The Flying Fridges (In which no one dies or is even seriously disturbed). For all my talk about what a good girl Sophie is, I have to say honestly, she's pretty hot and sensitive and super opinionated. So, I feel like all of this stuff is especially important for her if I ever want her to be a safe all around pony.

Growing Up

I finally had a weekend with time for myself! This summer has been a bit of a disaster by pretty much any definition, but I'm cautiously optimistic that things are back on an upswing and we will return to a nice, boring, normal :) I really like having a predictable schedule and feel all out of sorts when things don't allow for that.

Anyway, what did I do with my first normal week since June, you ask? Here's a hint: I'm updating this blog so there were horses involved!

I got Sophie out a few times and she was an absolute star. Honestly, as far as I was concerned she would have had a free pass to be a complete nightmare, given I don't think we left the property at all during the rest of the month of August. But no, she seemed as excited to get out and back to work as I was and there were zero dramatics beyond her standard level of playfulness.

I'm still waiting on the saddle that fits her to come back from repairs so there was no actual sitting on her. However, I rehashed all the prep work you'd expect and she was pretty chill with it all. She's super at lining herself up with the fence or mounting block now too, which is pretty fun. She's a smart little cookie, given we last visited that concept well over a month ago, and just the once.

She's starting to get a lot softer as far as giving to the bit as well. I'm not sure she's a fan of the snaffle that I'm currently using, so that's another piece of tack that's going to get traded out before I ride or more immediately, proceed with further long lining. For now we just do big sweeping turns and the standard flexions baby horses need to understand before you hop on.

I'm still open to sending her to a trainer, but we haven't hit a spot yet where I don't feel confident and comfortable with our progress. So, we continue on. She's definitely a little spooky and silly and quick thinking, but she's also very kind and tries hard so I've yet to feel like any of it is beyond me. I really got lucky with her!

As for Bridget, she got a spa day and a quick ride. Despite wanting things to be normal and to catch up on all the things, I caught some sort of death plague in the city last weekend and so there was a limit to my energy and ambition this week. Luckily, Bridget is good at matching my energy level and wasn't overly fussed about getting the shorter end of the stick attention wise. She's out in a little field and is perfectly content picking away at the bits of vegetation when she's not sleeping, just living her best life.

Onwards we go...I'm feeling really excited about the future!

Lucky Me

The other day, I was leading both ponies down the road, one on either side of me. Both were being perfectly behaved and happy to be out for an adventure. It was one of those "wow, life is great! I am so lucky" moments.

Until we got the the part where we cut through the farmer's market grounds with the big grassy field. I'll just put it out there - successfully leading 2 'starving' dry lotted ponies at a time across tall green grass is Expert Level Horsemanship And Pony Training. We're not quite there yet, lol.

My expedition with both ponies in tow was actually to test whether Sophie will be OK stalled at the fairgrounds by herself for a couple of hours. I have a clinic this weekend I'm taking her to, and I thought it would be nice to stick around after our session and audit a bit. So, I put her in a stall and took Bridget for a ride out of her line of sight. Not to worry, she screamed a couple of times for us, then seemed content hanging out and munching her hay. It might be a different story in a busier clinic environment, but I'm glad we tested it out and she had a good experience. I wouldn't expect her to be frantic or overly stressed, but she can be quite vocal and I don't want to distract everyone from their learning.

"Go away already! This hay is mine!" 

The remainder of our outings this past week were my standard trail rides on Bridget. We got out 3 times, and saw our first bear of the year up close. It was on a spot where the trail is quite narrow and close to the lake edge - the bear opted to run towards the lake, and I don't think any of us were pleased with him being sort of cornered there. We took our time and he got out ahead of us, only for us to catch up and startle him again a kilometer or so later. Poor bear by that point headed for the hills as fast as he could go, and the horses were feeling quite brave and proud of themselves! I was pretty grateful to be on Bridget. She told me in no uncertain terms that we needed to be Bear Aware and was very careful to kerp everyone safe.

No pictures of the bear as it really was a little dicey, but this picture from the following day shows what I think Bridget looked like when he was running away. 

Sophie's accomplishments for the week include successfully being at the show grounds 'alone', plus some further adventures in wearing tack and longeing like a grown up pony. She's giving me a lot of hope for the future. She's not the fanciest mover out there, but she's correct and decently balanced. She's naturally able to collect and extend and has a good awareness of where her feet are. I have hopes we won't have to teach her where to put her feet so she can canter (cough, cough, Bridget. We love you but please never again do I want to face that ;)

Sophie's balanced enough to canter right on the longe and even shorten and extend when she's feeling silly. To the left is harder for her, but she figured the lead out quickly and can now canter a circle or so before her balance starts to get iffy and I transition her to trot before the wacky lead changes can start. I have goals of helping her figure it all out on the ground/longe before anyone gets in the saddle, but we'll see. Right now it's me picking away one day at a time and my timing and experience is what it is.

Then best thing about this whole experience so far is that I have help handy when I need it, but so far I'm enjoying things and finding her really easy to work with. I want to learn and improve how I train and for me this is a very good way of doing so. 

Updates On My Labrador Retriever

Sophie was kept busy this week! With the cooler weather earlier in the week she was feeling quite feisty and showing off her moves. Sadly, no pictures as I needed all hands on the wheel. I'll just say she's more than a nice enough mover for my goals and seeing the difference that extra energy made in her movement was pretty exciting for me. Also, she definitely knows verbal trot and canter cues, so I can be firmer about them being prompt from my voice on her lazier days.

Knows her words

We also got out for some trail walks, with and without Bridget. She was super good the day my husband came with me and led Bridget while I led Sophie.  I try to simulate a real trail ride as much as possible and have them alternate leading the way. I also encourage G to take Bridget far ahead and out of sight, or far behind and trot to catch up to us...all things good trail horses need to be solid about. I was feeling pretty rough that day and the steep hills were hard for me, so I felt proud that she happily matched my pace and didn't fuss at all about what anyone else was doing. Best moment of the day was that my husband historically prefers to lead Bridget because she just follows along with minimal input, but when we traded on the last bit heading home he didn't want to give Sophie back because she was so polite with him. Progress!

She's still living life in the round pen. I had great plans of both ponies spending the summer on pasture, but Sophie took too much of a liking to scratching her butt on the fences and breaking them, and Bridget's weight exploded. Both their feet kind of fell apart too...Bridget's especially. Being easy keeping ponies, I feel better about keeping them on minimal 24/7 pasture and feeding low sugar hay instead of taking my chances with the super rich pasture currently on offer. I have had people say I'm crazy because pasture is free food, but I think the $50-$100 of low sugar hay each month is worth the peace of mind.

So round.

The interesting side effect of Sophie having her own condo is that my friendly pony is now extra friendly. On one hand, I feel bad because she's likely a little lonely. On the other hand, there are lots of other horses on the farm for her to talk to over fences, and there are people around all day. I fee like its really helping her mature - she's way less silly and distracted by the other horses and a lot more confident in herself.

I got her this ball thingy that dispenses bits of her grain as she plays with it. Best investment ever, she plays with it for hours.

I'm there a minimum of 5 days a week and she gets a good grooming and an outing on those days.  The huge benefit to me of her living alone is that she's super tuned into me. Since the first day I met her I've been her self appointed best human friend, and that bond seems to be extra strong right now.

Has feelings about me making het wear a bit tho.

She gets SO excited when my truck pulls in, and of course follows me everywhere. Its pretty cute. Who needs a dog when I have two extra people oriented ponies?

Week 5

I don't even know where this week went. If I break it down, I got a ton of things accomplished, just not too many of the riding and horse training variety. It was one of those weeks where it kind of felt like a struggle to do all the things, and I ended up giving up a couple of mornings to just enjoying my garden and reading - for some reason my entire body was/is sore and  I needed a rest!

I did attempt to train a mane

I was feeling a bit discouraged since I had a solid plan for putting in the hours with Sophie. It's tempting to just chalk my plan up as a fail and throw it away. Strange how knowing that's a stupid and self defeating thing to do doesn't at all stop me from hitting one tough week and still being tempted to give up (or at least scale back) :)

Never fear though, inner Mean Girl isn't calling the shots around here and I will get back on track this coming week.

In the spirit of celebrating the effort and small wins (and keeping it honest), here's what I got up to this week:

Monday/Tuesday: Away working.

Wednesday: Travel home in the afternoon, arriving in time for dinner with my husband, feed horses and muck out. Sophie was a bit of a pain while I was gone and was moved back to "jail".

That time I thought I bought a cute pony but actually spent a lot of money on a drama llama

Not sure why she's so good at knocking down fence rails right now...Its not the world's best constructed fence, but she has to be either deliberately kicking the rails or leaning on them despite the fact there is electric wire too. Suspicious that the only fence line she wrecks is the one she shares with Bridget - I think she's kicking at her :(

Thursday: Work from home. Got a last minute call about some local hay, so went and got 50 bales off the field after work. It's beautiful hay, but that was a lot of work in the heat and I wasn't up for much riding or baby horse training after stacking it in the barn.

Friday: Took Sophie to the arena to do some groundwork and longe. She was a bit of a pushy and distracted monster. That's partly on me though, I don't think she's the kind of horse who is going to do well with more than a couple of days off. Took Bridget out after for a nice ride on the trail with friends, but apparently S was in a bit of a state and screaming the whole 2 hours we were gone. No idea why, because it's not like she's friends with any of the horses we took (Bridget and her are most definitely on the outs). I'm not sure, but I might put them together for a little bit...S has been very rude and sassy to B, thinking she's a grown up mare now and " all that" .B can humble her and sort out whatever's going on pretty quick.

Saturday: Our weather has been insanely hot and dry, and so the well at the barn ran dry. Spent a good part of the afternoon filling buckets at home and taking it to my horses. We are on city water at home, but the pressure is not the best and it took about 45 min to fill four muck buckets with our garden hose. Kind of crazy. We're brainstorming ideas, because this is the second summer in a row it's been an issue and it would seem climate change is a thing -the news the other night said the top 15 of the hottest summers on record here  have happened since 2001.
 Maybe a storage container at the barn? Maybe a better system to transport it from our house? Not sure.

S doing her best to stand still and look normal :)

Sunday: I've never owned a truly mare-ish mare. My luck has come to an end, because although Sophie is sweet, she is very hormonal and dramatic if not given something else to think about. Honestly, there are days where if she wasn't already mine, I wouldn't want her, lol. The saving grace for me is that I do think she's going to be pretty special and well worth the extra work. Sunday, I  kept it simple and trimmed her feet, worked at tidying up her mane a bit more, then tacked her up and just took her for a hand graze. For S, all that is challenge enough when she's feeling antsy and impatient.

Some weeks, I am especially grateful for Bridget's low maintenance self

One Month/Small Wins

Today marks one full month of having Sophie back "home" and really focusing on giving her a good start in her working life. So, I thought I'd replace my usual monthly "Small Wins" post with a quick recap of what we've done with Sophie in the past month. If you're new here, basically these small wins serve as a progress marker for me, and a kindness to myself by reminding me of all the things that were fun or that are going well, rather than the challenges I might be apt to focus on otherwise.

- I feel like the most obvious win was bringing Sophie back to Bridget's boarding barn and having her settle in without too much drama.

- Related news: I'm getting a lot more comfortable with the whole trailering thing.

- So much progress made with Sophie. She leads politely again, she's started longeing, she wears tack like a big girl now.

- She's been on a lot of outings, including a swim at the lake and a trip through an in hand trail course.

- My summer work schedule seems to be a success so far - I'm keeping up with the chores associated with having both ponies self boarded, still fitting in regular rides on Bridget and outings for Sophie, and having a tiny social life too.

- Sophie's been much more patient about standing when tied, and is getting to be super easy for me when I handle her feet.

- I got a spot for the groundwork portion of an upcoming clinic in July and plan to bring Sophie. A win because spots fill up fast, and we have no local trainers. It will be a good opportunity to check in.

- She's growing and filling out and generally looking pretty good. I need to measure her to know just how much, but the idea of riding her sometime in the near future without squishing  her seems like it could happen.


Non Sophie related wins:

- The new camera. I still can't thank you guys enough for your input. We're two months in and I am growing ever more obsessed with photography tutorials and videos. I think I've discovered a new hobby! Not to mention that having new pictures of my horses pretty much any time I want them (which, let's be real, is always :) is pretty wonderful.

- Bridget is doing really well. Although a little fat due to too much pasture time and not enough exercise, she is happy and definitely feeling good and enjoying a little vacation from work. She deserves to be spoiled a little bit now and then.

25-28: Summer Camp

I've been quite busy this week, so Pony Boot Camp more resembles Pony Summer Camp!

Bridget's easiest boot camp ever.

Day 25: Away for work

Day 26: Work, and I had to take a later ferry home, so no time for horses.

Day 27: Took Sophie back down to the club grounds to do some longeing and groundwork. I could do both at home, but I like taking advantage of all the horses and goings on at the club grounds, especially with such an easily distracted baby. She was very up and energetic on our walk, less enthused to longe. I added some ground poles to the mix, which took a bit of figuring for her ("I can trot and canter over these?") but I think kept it a little more interesting. I strategically placed one in the corner she gets distracted in, and it worked like a charm to keep her watching where she's going :)

The trail course was still set up so I took advantage of that as well. She considered saying no to the tarp for a brief moment, then remembered she is a good girl and not actually scared. The walk home was uneventful...I think I tired her brain out.

Standing quietly while tied, even. Who is this pony?

Day 28: Having been released from her round pen jail the previous evening, I found Sophie pastured way down at the bottom of the farm (and no broken fence rails, Yay!) It's a lovely field, but kind of a pain in the butt for me as the manure pile is on the opposite corner of the property, and uphill! It actually adds quite a bit of time to chores (2 hours last night for both ponies to pick paddocks and feed). After that, a bit of a rain storm passed through so I opted to just trim feet and head home to dry off. I was pleasantly surprised that Sophie stood quietly for me in her field without a halter and let me tidy up all 4 hooves without a fuss. A huge win for me and the impatient baby pony.

Still has her moments. I was treated to an assortment of interesting faces as I filled Bridget's water bucket. Sophie would like to be the center of attention at all times, please. 

 Since I am very new to this hoof trimming thing I am reluctant to make any big changes, so I've promised myself to look at them every week or two. It's amazing to me how much their feet change in even that time frame! I am on my own for the next 6 weeks, then the farrier that travels here will check fix my work again (can't wait!) I'll freely admit this is not my cup of tea, but without a local farrier it seems to be my only option. If it was just Bridget and her round cob feet I'd be fine, but Sophie wants to have the long toe/low heel thing and I worry about that a lot.

Today there is a fun day for the Therapeutic Riding kids. I think I'll save them the fun and distraction that is Sophie and probably just take her for a little hike in the forest somewhere - it's a beautiful day again.

Days 23&24: Running On A String

Title courtesy of my husband who recently stated with all seriousness that Sophie is getting pretty good at "running on a string" :) I love him, and let's be real, his terminology probably makes more sense than "longeing" to anyone non horsey.

Sophie got back down to the arena x2. Once to practice longeing/running on a string, once to go back through the parts of the trail course from the weekend that we left out.

We're both making equal mare faces, lol

I did the longeing last night. She's getting pretty good, but I do need to keep focused as she's not all that brave in some parts of the arena and would really rather not trot around out there all by herself....it's much more fun and safe feeling to be closer to me, don't you know. The forward button remains a little stickier than I'd like, but it's improving each time - we're getting closer to her offering  a consistent tempo more often than not and sharper "up" transitions are coming. She's not at all fussed by the longe whip and honestly a bit wanting to hang back if you let her so it's tempting to nag at her. I need to resist that temptation and enforce that go means go NOW until I say stop, because I do want her to be sharp under saddle!

I meant to focus on the horse...but I kind of like it anyway

Today, we revisited some of the trail challenge obstacles. I practiced sending her over and through things I know she's fine with (poles, a bridge) and surprisingly, she wasn't that confident. That actually makes sense, since I wasn't there beside her leading her, rather she was on the end of a line and "all by herself". She quickly gained confidence though and aced it.

Throwback to Bridget showing us the car wash of doom.

 I did have to get a bit more assertive when it came to the car wash, and a longer discussion was had about going forward where I ask, but it was the right call - she eventually just sighed and walked right on through and wasn't really worried about it. She just would have preferred to say no and not try it, I think. I had her hang out under the tarp while I scratched her and told her she was the best and bravest pony and pretended she hadn't just been testing boundaries. That made her quite happy and proud of herself and she stepped up after that and was a total star. I'm appreciative she's so interested in making me happy, it really does help make things easy!

That 80's rocker hair, tho :/

I'm away for work for a couple of days again, unfortunately. I'm absolutely loving having a youngster again so along with me liking to say hi to Bridget every day, my enthusiasm for barn time is pretty high right now! It's a small bit of torture to not be able to go to the barn every day. I'm considering a pay cut/career change so I can work locally and be home all week, but we'll see. That's a big decision best thought out thoroughly.

Days 17-22: Challenges

We've all had them - those weeks where everything just feels a little off kilter, a little more difficult than it should be. My board increased with a day's notice, the hay thing happened (and to add insult the people claim I didn't return one of the bales and owe them $12!) my halter and fly spray went missing, and Sophie smashed a fence and the barn owner is unhappy with her. Hopefully this string of (minor in the grand scheme of things) inconveniences is through now and normalcy can resume.

On to our daily recaps:

Days 17-20: Basically, it was hot and I really wasn't feeling well. So, between work, keeping up with the garden, the hay fiasco, and general mucking out and barn chores the only "add ons" I accomplished were giving both ponies a good grooming and trimming Sophie's feet one evening.

Day 21: This day was...a challenge. I got to the barn in the morning and was told Sophie ran through a fence the night before. She was unscathed, and happily living with Bridget. The barn owner was understandably unhappy though. The backstory is that another horse on the property smashed multiple fences the other day and the barn owner is just over it, so Sophie's jailbreak was extra unwelcome. After begging forgiveness and offering to put time in fixing fences, off we went to an in hand trail challenge I signed up for.

Farmer's market season is apparently back in full swing, which can be challenging at the best of times. Everyone parks on the road and kind of meets and chats there before they head into the market grounds. The only way to get to the equestrian grounds is to thread the needle through all those people and parked cars on the road. I was proud of Sophie for trusting me enough to brave that excitement!

The trail challenge itself went alright. It was advertised as a fun day, but people showed up ready to compete like it was a show! Plus, there were a number of spectators. A great thing for the club and organizers, not so much for me with my baby horse just wanting some experience. Since it ended up being a timed event, the couple of things Sophie wasn't 100% confident about (a tarp and a plastic kids pool) I just gave her a big pat for sticking a foot on or in and called it good. Baby steps. We didn't do the pattern of poles you were supposed to side pass through at all. I've only just cracked moving her shoulders and hind end around! 4 wheel drive sideways is beyond us right now, lol.

On the good side, she stood around for a really long time (2+hours waiting) and was decent about it. She was cool with almost everything on the course. Bridges, a giant inflatable ball, a couple of small jumps, some hoops on the ground, etc. The stuff she wasn't sure of, she still gave a decent try. What more can I ask?

As it was apparently  "serious" competition, there were some unwanted opinions and suggestions expressed over my handling of her/lack of attempt of some of the obstacles/Sophie's lack of experience given her age. Since I try to be honest here, I'll admit that took the fun out of the day for me despite logical me feeling good about my life choices. The comments came across as judge-y and condescending rather than helpful or genuine. I admit to not having a huge interest in groundwork or natural horsemanship games, but you can trust me when I say S politely stands and leads and wasn't causing anyone any trouble. Yes, we kind of sucked if you're keeping time and scores, yes, as always we have lots to work on. Yes, some people's 2 or 3 year olds could eat that course up. Maybe under saddle too. But, I'm proud of her and comfortable with my choice of leaving her alone to grow up. I'm disappointed in myself for letting a few rotten apples eat at me and take away my enjoyment of the day.

Loving my garden right now as an alternate happy place when the barn is challenging. I have cute helpers too.

Back home we went, and Sophie got a big pile of hay and a fresh bucket of water...in her jail cell. Poor pony, back to life in the round pen until the fencing is deemed pony safe (the electric might be on the fritz, which would explain a lot!)

Onwards we go. I look forward to a nice outing this evening. 

14-16: Sidetracked

It's been unseasonably hot, and G has been on vacation so the weekend evolved to be more about yard work and social outings than horses. It's all good though, we so rarely have days off together that I'm quite content to spend my spare time doing normal couple type things when we can. Obviously, since I am self boarding, we still spent plenty of time at the barn, though :) Normal couple's date night includes feeding horses and picking poo, right? Fly spray is a nice perfume, yes?

"Feed us already, lady!"

I have a funny story regarding all that, actually. We had to feed all the horses at the barn Saturday night, as well as go to a friend's (dressy) birthday dinner at a nice restaurant in town. I had it all planned out, wearing barn clothes over top of my nice ones so I could hopefully look presentable post horse visit. I was feeling pretty good when my plan went off without a hitch.

Until we got back in the truck and had three missed messages.

Our neighbour: "Um hey, so your cat is in our yard and it's bugging my dogs and I don't know what to do. Can you come get it?"

Our neighbours have 3 dogs that are quite frequently in our yard. Our indoor cat is not a fan of that and likes to scowl at them from the window.

So, it seems he snuck out and instead of embracing his freedom and doing normal cat things, he immediately went next door to get revenge. And yes, he chased her dogs and generally caused chaos. Also, we live on the exact opposite side of town than the restaurant we were due at.

Such a jerk.

At least this time we weren't late for dinner due to my horses?

I'm back home Wednesday afternoon and my horsey plans should return to normal. I signed Sophie up for an in hand trail class Saturday morning and I think that will be fun.

Days 12&13: Honeymoon's Over

Thursday evening, I kind of ran out of time and was only able to get the chores done and move Sophie to a proper field (life in the round pen is over for the time being. Yay!) It was just as well that I didn't make any bigger plans because between Sophie and her new neighbours, the hormones were running rampant. I've been spoiled with Bridget, I forgot how much I am not a fan of mare-y mares. The universe does like balance, I guess, because Sophie is of the peeing-everywhere-because-I-met-a-new-friend mare variety. Ah well.

Friday, I had a lot more time so Ms Sophie got to go for some longeing again. Her neighbours were hysterical about her leaving and screaming and running around, which didn't make for the most Zen experience as I groomed her and got her ready up at the barn. Sophie was decent, just a little worried. Our walk down the road was a non event - maybe she's the type that is a bit of a worrier but once she's seen it she's fine. Theres a scrap metal recycler and an auto repair place that have tons of scary things and noises but she barely looks any more.

"Something touched me!"

The longeing was a bit more eventful. Like all smart baby horses she decided to see whether she really has to do these crazy things I ask and some opinions were expressed.  We worked on having prompt up transitions, because there was a dog training class with some pretty excitable/loud puppies going on nearby and she desperately just wanted to stop and watch them. Sorry S, I'm supposed to be the most interesting thing in your life! All in all not bad for fourth time ever, I'm not fussed about "mistakes" at this stage, but am a lot more serious about being consistent that checking in for 10 minutes of work a day with me isn't an optional thing :)

Good girl

Yielding that left shoulder away from me. Progress :)

So interested in the puppy party.

Heading home, some bicycles came zipping up behind us and well and truly scared her. I've talked G into bringing his bike next time to ride with and around us so hopefully we can address that with a good experience.

She kind of lost the plot after that and just desperately wanted to het home to her new (now within screaming distance) friends. To give her credit, she was still very polite to lead, just obviously anxious. When we got back, I left her tied at our grooming spot up by the barn while I did chores and her energy levels went back down.

I feel like we're at the stage where she's comfortable in her new home so the true colors are showing themselves a little more. All good though, she's never really difficult or bad (more just obnoxious, lol) I wanted something more energetic and thinking than Bridget, and think with some further experience and miles S is going to be fantastic.

Pay attention in school, Sophie :)