This is a video of me driving Claire in the front yard. She is doing well, but still mouthing and pulling on the bit a little bit. We are at a trot. Later I asked for the canter and she did it a few strides and then stopped. We corrected that right away, and as soon as she could go without stopping, I stopped her.

It was hot today, but I had fun workng with both Annie and Claire. Here is what I did today!

Annie:

I worked with Annie first today and she was so excited to come out of the stall and go to work. I keep her and all my horses up at night in a stall and run, and let them out in the morning to graze.

1. I decided to work with Annie in the round pen. I have only worked once or twice with her before and never for very long and never felt like I accomplished much. Boy today was a different day! I have been watching Sylvia Scott's method of round penning and really liked using a rope and point better tha the lunge whip. Basically I taught Annie outside turns and got her to turn and face me and do inside turns.

First I send her off in the round pen, looking her straight in the eye and squaring my shoulder to hers. Then I cock my head, point to her head and then send her around with a sling of the rope. She caught on real fast, and then we worked on inside turns. For inside turns I had to stop her and get her to face me, relieve the pressure,-- step away from her -- and then turn back around for an inside turn.

The neatest thing of all, is by the time I was finished she had joined up with me and would follow at my shoulder wherever I would go. I could point to her hindquarters and she would move them over me. Really neat! She was very eager to be next to me and not be sent off to the outer circle of the round pen.

She kept saying, "Please let me come in with you! Please!"

2. After that, I worked on driving her while walking beside her. She did great and we walked over several trot poles and around some cones. She needs more practice on this, but for her second day doing this, she did great.

3. We ended with flexing her to side to side.

Problems:

1. Annie is not as relaxed as Claire, but is much more forward moving which is good. She over anticipates sometimes and does not want to make a mistake. Her flexing is funny, because she kind of goes down and then over, and not a straight over to the side flex.

The best thing that happened today was I found out that Annie will be much easier to train because she is so forward moving. I fell in love with Annie today!!

Claire

1. We worked first in the round pen today and I found it much harder to get her to do what I got Annie to do. She was SO lazy-- I almost found myself charging her to get her to canter. She didn't clue into me as much Annie did at the beginning, and when she would stop, instead of joining up with me, would go down to graze on grass. I found myself getting frustrated. I sent her off several times at the canter and kept her there, but she kept wanting to break down to a trot. I got her to do outside turns and maybe one inside turn, but I need to re-watch the video again to see what I am doing wrong. I did get her join up with me, but she did not stay with me through all the turns like Annie did. Basically Claire was barely stressed in the round pen, and Annie was saying, "Oh please, let me be with you, Please!"

2. I ground drove Claire without saddle and just walking beside her. She did very well, taking all obstacles like a champ. Her biggest problem is not moving away from me when I move toward her shoulder.

3. The rest of the time, I took Claire in and saddled her. I ground drove her all over the property-- in the front, by the pond, by the back porch, in the front yard and in the back pasture. I trotted her and she has a very slow trot carrying her head down most of the time. I practiced on stopping and backing her and she does pretty well. She is still wanting to nose out some, but getting much better.

4. I drove down in her scary spot in the back pasture and unsaddled her there. I wanted her to have good feelings in that spot.

Problems:

1. Claire's biggest problem is not wanting to go forward. I smooched her into the canter and she took it for a few strides and then stopped. This is the same thing she was doing last week on the lunge line and it was very frustrating. How I solved it last was backing her fast-- making the choice of stopping uncomfortable-- and then going back and asking for the canter and then stopping her as soon as she went a few strides. Over the next few days, I worked on that until I could get her to come several laps around me. And so I thought it was cured, until today. This could prove to be a very big problem in the future and so I will do some studying and thinking about this. I have ordered the clicker and clicker training book, and as soon as I have Claire 'target' trained, I will probably use the clicker to encourage her to stay in the canter.