Prince: Online, Liberty and Bridling.

March 17, 2011

We started with bridling, which went really well. Prince took the bit beautifully, kept his head nice and low while I adjusted everything and once we started playing he didn't even seem to notice it! I kept the bridle on for the whole session as I want to build the amount of time that Prince is okay with wearing it and as I wasn't planning on playing long I figured that it would be a great session to start.

 It was to wet/icy (snow on top of water which was on top on ice) in the riding ring to do any cantering, which was a little disappointing because I had planned on playing with our circles but I was able to adjust to fit the situation and Prince and I played with circles on the 12ft line with two barrels. We started with doing trot to halt transitions right in front of the barrel that was lying down and then once that was going really smoothly we changed it up a bit and I asked Prince to squeeze between the barrels while maintaining gait, all things that we had done before so it was nothing new but it is always good to check things out again.

Prince knocked the barrel a couple times (I wonder where his mind really was? Obviously it wasn't totally on me :) So we then switched to Figure eights. Of course Prince was even less motivated to do these so I had to make it a fun game. After a couple figure eights Prince started getting more and more interested and he stopped hitting the barrels and started asking questions and everything for lighter and it felt way more smooth!

After those were going well and we found rhythm, relaxation and connection on the Figure eight we played at Liberty. 

In our Liberty session we did Touch it, sideways, close range circles at the walk and trot, and stick to me (with my hand on Prince's). Stick to me went really well and Prince is starting to get a great bend in his body on the right side. Which is great to see. We played a kind of Tit for Tat game because I can't force him to bend or to stay connected with me so what we did was started on a straight line and trotted forwards then did really big circles, which will eventually build to small circles like we have on the other side. Then we would gradually get the circles smaller but when I felt that Prince wanted to go more straight again I would flow with him and then bring him back to the circle again. Once we got a 1/2 a circle with Prince bending really nicely and I really felt that he was connected we stopped. It really worked well and this way we didn't loose the connection. I just went with Prince for a couple feet and then brought him back to where I wanted to go. We both won in the end.

We ended with standing on the pedestal where I unbridled Prince and we hung out for a while. Then I brought Ruffian and Twosox in for my two little brothers to play with. While they played I thought it would be a great opportunity to teach Prince to stay on his "spot" or ground tie, at Liberty. So since he was on the pedestal I figured I would make that his "spot". I had to send him back about 4 times when he got off. The last time I sent him back at the trot (because I knew that he knew where he was supposed to be) and he trotted right over to the pedestal climbed back up.

When he was on the pedestal I left him alone. Left brain introverts like to show how smart they are and this gave Prince a chance to do that because once he figured it out, and after he tested to see if I was going to hold my end of it, he stood there for about 20 minutes and didn't move off of the pedestal again.

Prince started licking and chewing, yawning and blowing out so I figured that it was a great time to let him go so I walked over to him and we walked over to the gate together and I let him out. It was really cool to see him finally get it and uphold each of his responsibilities so well!!

Naturally,
~Keri