November 16th Playtime

November 16 2009

Twosox and I had a great play session today. He was a million times more confident then he was last time we played. I was only planning on playing around with the tarp but we ended up doing more then that. But that was totally fine. To start off with my mom wanted me to show her how I get Prince or Twosox farther away from me when we are doing Touch it on a longer line [22ft or 45ft] So I stood at the fence and sent Twosox 22ft away to the tractor tire. I was actually surprised at how well Twosox did. We haven't really done a lot of that. I mean we have done Touch it from 22ft away but we haven't done a lot of it while I kept my feet still and sent him all the way out to the end of the 22ft line to touch something. It was neat!!! Twosox asked me a question when he got there and he offered to put his foot on it... or at least try. He couldn't get his foot on the top because it was to high. After I had brought him in and let him lick and chew I sent him over to the pedestal, again keeping my feet still. This one was a little harder for Twosox because he had to go straight in front of me and in doing so put me in zone 5 but he did really well and was confident the whole time. I then asked him to put all four feet on. He had a little bit of trouble with that so I had to move closer to help him. But in the end he got it.

While Twosox was standing with all four feet on the pedestal I went around and set up different obstacles. Twosox stood there the whole time and for Twosox that is really good. Normally he would have climbed off. Right near the end the tarp that was behind him got caught by the wind and scarred him. He jumped like 6ft off the pedestal and then turned and looked at me. I walked up to him gave him a rub then asked him to go stand on the pedestal again. He went right back up and stayed there while I finished setting everything up.

We then went and played with the different toys. It was a lot of fun. A couple times Twosox got a little worried so we just kept with it until he was confident then we moved on. When I asked Twosox to jump the barrels he flew right over them. I am not sure if he was a little unconfident though because he jumped really high. We then walked over to the tarp that was hanging down from the tree. Twosox was doing fine and was confident but then a gust of wind came a just the wrong time and the tarp moved. Twosos stopped and stared at it. So we walked away and did some sideways with out a fence, and then went and did some Figure eights. At first Twosox was not connected with me so we kept with the pattern until he started getting connected and then we stopped. After that we did some Stick to me, circles, traveling circles and I backed Twosox out the small gate. I wasn't sure how Twosox would do backing through the gate because it is not very wide and there is a hill on the other side but he did really well and was confident the whole time.

Then we went and I asked Twosox to back onto a tarp that was on the ground. Twosox wasn't to sure about it at first but then he figured it out and was able to back on to it confidently. There was only a gentle breeze now so we went over to the tarp that was hanging from the tree. I couldn't believe how confident Twosox was with it!!!! He walked right under it like he had done it all his life!!!!! We did it three times and each time he got more confident. The last time he walked right straight under it and the tarp even touched him in zone 4/5 and he was fine. It was AMAZING!!!!!

The last thing we did was picking up his feet. Twosox did really well and let me hold his feet with out to much problems. We are hoping to have the Proffessional barefoot trimmer come out soon for a one on one lesson day. Should be fun!! I think that we will trim Twosox first because he will most likely be the most patient... him being the only right brain horse in our herd.

I was really proud of how well Twosox handled everything today. He was so brave!!!!

~K