Weekend play

Little Chief watching over Laz and Sawyer during nap time, sent via BO

These three continue to get along, play, sometimes bully and fight each other, but it's great for all of them to be in their little herd.

Sat, I clearly came during nap time.

Can you blame me? 

Horse Frogger?

 So, the next second, Sawyer came up to Laz and Laz decided "Allley oooop" and up I went with him.

Fun fun fun.

He just stood up within one second, and walked away with me on his back. 

Thankfully, we were just in his paddock and the pasture wasn't open other wise I'd be gone on a bit of a ride Indian style.

 Sweet boy

 A view from above on my naked horse

 The remaining of the day was great. 

Rode in the arena, had some minor spooking, and bratty head snaking shoulder bucking (more like his humping up his shoulder while arching his neck and totally pushing into bridle and being a brat) but we rode through it.  I can compare the feeling to riding a dolphin (or what I imagine it would be)..the hump action on their backs and the up and down, while forward. 

He was bothered by the wind, shaking pine trees (I think) and kept reacting to it.  Or who knows...but something made him annoyed.

 I kept him trotting in figure 8's and then brought him back down to a walk. I wanted to 'reset' his mind.  When he gets frustrated or fearful, he AMPS its up, so I always want to attempt to bring him down.  Sometimes the trotting works, other times, if we cool it and walk through it, he is able to absorb things better mentally.

Re-set

We picked up our work again, did some pole trot work, and then walked around the property a little.

He calmed down.

We joined up with another boarder and her senior horse, for a hand walk down the dirt road.

It was so great, I wanted to come back Sunday and do it again.

Sunday-Laz was a bit sore.  

(I don't think it's connected to his ointment..I think it's weather related and possibly he hurt himself a bit, during his bucking episode?)

His trot was awful, totally off and I couldn't bear asking him to do it.

I decided no riding, just work on some Parelli mental games, keep it at the walk and see where it took us.

He was great.  He enjoys his little Parelli-ish stuff.

I say Parelli-ish, because that's how I roll...it's always 'ish. I can't following anything exactly or to a "t" and I like to have it be somewhat our own thing with a backbone of some structure.

We walked off line, together around the arena, over the cavaletti's, worked on circles, backing up, follow the leader (moi) and just played. 

He was calm and happy to walk around and follow and listen freely.

He kept hesitating at this spot and pawed, so I stopped to offer up a roll for him.

I know rolling is a great release for their muscles and mind.

And, below I took a picture from our road walk...

My calm ottb going for a nice hand walk down our dirt road off our barn.

We've walked it before but not in at least a year, up until this weekend.

So, we walked it both Saturday and Sunday. 

I clocked it with my car, and it is .8 mile round trip.

So, next time, I'm going to have us go a little further so it's at least a mile walk.

Great for us both.

Mason joined us, and we walked with other boarders and their horses.

It's a beautiful walk. Quiet, dirt road, not many cars but enough to keep him exposed and learn to not panic, which he's been great.  We even walked by a neighbor on his lawn mower/tractor thing raking up his lawn with NO reaction. 

Awesomeness!

Laz seems to enjoy it and it has to help build his confidence and exposure to different things daily. 

It's fun to find something different to do, when the original plan needs to be altered.

He got his beet pulp slurpee today, and I put some of his holistic medicine in it for anti-swelling for his soreness.  

I treated his hock spots and that ointment seems to be working pretty fast...so far so good.

Spring is coming....the chirping birds don't lie!