Prince: Motivation.

December 6 2010

Prince and I had an amazing playtime this afternoon. I learned a whole lot about focus and motivation and lots of other things. We started by playing with our yo-yo's. It is amazing how new/newish ropes really carry an amazing feel! So much better than the older ones. I am going to try to keep these ones as new as possible. Maybe wash them more. Anyway, our yo-yo's is really starting to come a long and so we switched to the 22ft line. Prince was able to maintain the same speed in the back up all the way to the end of the 22ft line! Hooray! Progress! That used to be really hard for him.

Then we played with some Stick to me. We did halt to canter stick to me, and also canter to halt. It was really fun! Prince caught on really fast and we got some really snappy departures! Since Prince was listening to my energy so well I asked him to walk over to a barrel that was lying down, stop, sniff it and then I asked him to jump it from a stand still. He did and he cleared it! It was really cool!

After that we did a little bit of circles. We did a little bit of cantering but it felt that I was doing a lot more than Prince was. He looked unmotivated. So as he was circling I was thinking "What could I do to change things up a bit and motivate Prince?" There was a single barrel lying kind of in Prince's path but kind of not. So I turned to Prince as he was getting closer to it and focused right at the barrel, all eyes were on that barrel, and Prince jumped right over. I was amazed, though I really shouldn't have been but I was because Prince didn't try to go around it nor was he pulling on the rope. He kept the same rhythm the whole time and cleared it no problem.

Well after that Prince got really motivated and he cantered easily, while I was in neutral, a couple laps each way. While he was going to the right though he hit a patch of ice that was covered in snow and he slid and fell down. Thankfully he wasn't hurt and he got back up and kept on going, talk about don't change gait, don't change direction! I am just so thankful that Prince didn't hurt himself because he went down pretty hard. But he wasn't limping or showing any signs of being hurt. Praise the Lord!

I brought him in and gave him a rest though. I couldn't get over the look on his face, he was putting so much effort into everything!! The last thing we did in the riding ring was I stood at the end of the 22ft line and sent Prince over to the same barrel and to jump it. He did and the belly of the rope was on the ground! It was beautiful!

After that we went down to the corral and then I let Prince go but he stayed with me. So I scratched him for a while and hung out and then I went and gave the horses a bale of hay :)

It was a short but very successful and fun playtime. I ended when Prince was motivated and willing and I think that will make a big difference next time. I love playing with my horse's mind!

Naturally,

~Keri