Process time

The sun was shining today! Too bad it was while I was at work. Cloudy by the time I got home but it was calm and dry, so I call it a pretty good day.

Just for the heck of it, I wanted to see what my english saddle looked like on Cody. So I brought it out (and brought Mom with to take some pictures). So when I went to set it on his back I showed it to him, touched his shoulder with it and then set it on. He didn't move, he didn't even flinch. So I took it off and back on a couple times before girthing it up, which he also didn't care about. Walked around a bit and then he trotted a few circles before I figured, what the heck, and let the stirrups down so they would bounce against his sides. This also didn't phase him.



What was a bit of an issue today was just plain leading, lol. After having the saddle on, I took it off and we were going to go for a walk around the back yard since we haven't had time to do that for awhile. Started out by making him back out of the gate (which we've done a couple times before) which he does nice and calm, even has to step over a board that keeps the sand from spilling out into the grass too much. Then onto the walk. It started out okay, but then he was being a bit of a pill and wouldn't go forward. Thinking back on it now, I should have just looped the rope around his rump and kept going, ah well, hopefully I'll remember that next time. I still kind of worry that if he gets too bouncy he could get loose again and so I hesitate to do as much outside his pen (hence my desire for a round pen which would give us some more space but still have those walls).



Back in his pen we go and set out to work on just plain leading. There were some not so pretty moments of protest, but I just kept his feet moving and going where I wanted them to go as much as I could. We ended on a decent note so I took his halter off and went inside to eat dinner.

This is where the process time comes in :) There was probably about an hour between the time I took his halter off and then went back out. He was sooo much better! Not perfect, we still had a couple "moments" but not like earlier. And we even did pretty good practicing leading from the off side! So hooray for giving him time to think and hooray that I went back out after dinner instead of just leaving it until morning. Hopefully the "moments" will be even less then :)