I went downlake last week from Nov. 10 through the 13th to play with Kjarda a few more days before winter really hits. When I first got down there on Wednesday, it was way too late to do anything, so I just went and said hello to her, brushed her and gave her some treats. The happy part was she was nickering to me as soon as I got out of the car. Sweet feeling.
In my last blog I said I was going to try the Figure 8 with the technique of doing less to get more. As it turns out . . . we didn't do the Figure 8 even once! Sorry to disappoint you. But you never know what you will be doing the next time you see your horse. And Figure 8 patterns was not something that we were in a mindset to do.
Thursday, because I had not done anything with her for almost three weeks, I started with some leg stretches, neck flexion, tail rotations as taught in Jec Ballou's book about fitness and strengthening exercises for horses. Kjarda loves that stuff. She loosens up, licks and chews, shakes her head . . . good reactions. After that we went into the round pen, which has deep sand in it, and played at liberty until she was breathing decently hard. She gave me some spins, changes of direction, transitions and walked around me in a close circle. It was all really good . . . but she wouldn't trot in a close circle. Before she left Stehekin in October, in a small area like a round pen or her corral, she would trot around me in a close circle. This time when I would ask her to trot, she moved all the way out to the rail. I was disappointed as it appeared we had lost some connection there and I'm not sure why. But we went on to the riding part of the morning and we did some nice walk, trot, shoulder-in, canter warm-ups. By the time we quit, she was nice and sweaty, very responsive and tired. It was a good loosening up day. I walked her out for about 10 minutes, let her graze a little and put her away.
The next day was a stunning fall day. The temperature rose to 50+ degrees. Stacy, Liz and I went on a trail ride up in the hills. I think we could see all the way to Wenatchee and the mountains west of Leavenworth. It was really beautiful. All our horses were mares and they were all very frisky and even a little feisty. Unfortunately, the ground had frozen or had snow on it which melted in the warmth of the day and made the track rather slick, so we couldn't do any cantering. But we got in some trots and worked them out pretty well on the uphill. Of course, they came down much friskier than they went up!!! Kjarda did well loading both coming and going. That was nice.
Friday night, because I had been so disappointed about Kjarda not wanting to stay close at the trot, I sat and watched Parelli on-line videos that dealt with left brain introvert horses. I had heard this many times from Linda Parelli, but evidently I needed to hear it several more times . . . with left brain introverted horses, you have to wait. So I went back up to Stacy's on Saturday with that in mind. I was going to work in the round pen on-line and at liberty as needed, but do more waiting for Kjarda to respond in hopes that she would voluntarily, willingly, come to me and trot in a close circle. We played for two hours doing various on-line and liberty exercises . . . transitions, backing, spins, changes of direction, sideways away from and towards. It all went well and Kjarda seemed pretty connected. She did the walk around close just find, but . . .again, when I asked for the trot, she moved away. So I waited. She made ovals, coming close in front or behind, but going away on the sides and sometimes she just stayed away. Finally at the end, she did a few trot steps while looking at me and not entirely having the intention of leaving, so we stopped and I rewarded her with some soak time and then some graze time. I didn't have another chance to play with her, but I believe we left on a good note . . . something for her to build on until I can go back down, which may be almost two months from now, depending on the weather.
Kjarda has always been an aloof horse. She is a challenge, but I believe a lot of it is my high energy, extrovert personality clashing with her lower energy, introvert personality. I get frustrated and I know she knows that, and then I get "all prickly" as Linda once called it. I have to work on that. I will do more studying and watching Linda with Remmer this winter, as he and Kjarda are a lot alike. I am only recently realizing how much so. I'm glad to have that resource . . .
Until next time, thanks for following.
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