April 12 2010
This morning I played with Twosox. This time I had a plan of what I wanted to play with so that really helped! I am at the point now with all three horses that I have to have a plan because all the normal stuff is boring now. So this morning I wanted to play with Traveling circles (our next pattern), straddling a pole lengthwise and backing over a pole. I was pretty sure that Twosox would be able to do all of them but I wanted to see.
Since Twosox is in introvert I started out with the smaller things. It just so happened that I forgot that I wanted to try straddling a pole lengthwise and so we didn't do that. But that was okay because we still had a lot of fun! The two barrels were standing up side by side with about a 3ft gap between them so I asked Twosox to back between then. I started off with asking him to walk through them and then back up. He did very well and by the end he backed through then while I was standing about 22ft away! It was really neat!
After that I got a pole and asked him to back over that. Twosox backed over it no problem so then I asked him to come to me one foot at a time over the pole (resting after Twosox put each foot over the pole). Twosox did very well with that. After that we did some traveling circles. Okay.... a lot of them! Twosox did very well but just before we were going to end he saw the open gate and by the time I had a chance to see what happened (the gate was to my left and so I didn't see it coming) Twosox had trotted out the gate and I couldn't hang on. So down the hill he went dragging the rope through the mud. After I had gotten Twosox back I decided to play around the gate and show Twosox that just because it was open didn't mean that he had to go through it. It took a while because he definitely wasn't scarred when he took off so he tried it a few more times but this time I was prepared! At the end he could trotted past the gate, both directions, and keep the belly of the rope on the ground.
As Twosox was circling I had a really good chance to see just how bad his conformation really is. I knew it wasn't exactly the picture of a good banana and I knew that he pulled himself along with his front end and all but I didn't know what to do about it. We had tried Hill therapy a year or two ago but that didn't change much. So I decided to try some cavaletti (sp?) therapy. We don't have proper cavaletties so I am just using some poles. Hopefully they will work the same.... So Twosox and I have started our cavaletti therapy program... As soon as Twosox trotted over those poles his head was on the ground and he was stretching like crazy! Each time he went over he would stretch so that was a really good sign! Going the other direction he didn't stretch as much but nearer the end he started stretching a little bit. So it was a good start! I am going to try and get out every day for the next week and do it all properly. It will be good for Twosox's conformation and also it will be good because I will get to play with him once a day! Which will be really nice!
So after that we ended. All in all it was a really good play time! The next couple weeks should be fun :)
Naturally,
~Keri
As Twosox was circling I had a really good chance to see just how bad his conformation really is. I knew it wasn't exactly the picture of a good banana and I knew that he pulled himself along with his front end and all but I didn't know what to do about it. We had tried Hill therapy a year or two ago but that didn't change much. So I decided to try some cavaletti (sp?) therapy. We don't have proper cavaletties so I am just using some poles. Hopefully they will work the same.... So Twosox and I have started our cavaletti therapy program... As soon as Twosox trotted over those poles his head was on the ground and he was stretching like crazy! Each time he went over he would stretch so that was a really good sign! Going the other direction he didn't stretch as much but nearer the end he started stretching a little bit. So it was a good start! I am going to try and get out every day for the next week and do it all properly. It will be good for Twosox's conformation and also it will be good because I will get to play with him once a day! Which will be really nice!
So after that we ended. All in all it was a really good play time! The next couple weeks should be fun :)
Naturally,
~Keri
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