Saturday – The vet was coming at 9 AM. I arrived an hour early to have time to work Bonita. I spent some time with her loose in the stall, putting the saddle on and off from both sides. Still more work to do here. She would stand still working from the right side, but not from the left, and even on the right, she wasn’t entirely okay with the process.
Once tacked up, I took her to the outdoor and worked her both ways on the lunge for about 5 minutes. She was just as good as last time. Then… Sarah came in with her TB, Pete. Bonita’s mind was blown for a minute or so.. ANOTHER HORSE in the ARENA with HER! After she saw that Pete was fine with his ground work and it wasn’t going to be a battle for who was top horse, she settled just fine and went back to work.
I'm getting The Eye...
Sunday – Again, I was out early, this time to feed. It had rained and the outdoor arena was wet enough to have slick footing. I couldn’t work in the indoor, as there were still tables set up from an event last night. I figured that it was a good day to get her off the property.
We took a walk down the road toward Mt. Pisgah and trails. Every so often, when her head sunk to level and she sighed, I would stop and let her graze some. We passed driveways with piles of rocks and reflectors, orchards, farm stands, open fields, and went over a bridge. I walked in the middle, after checking that there were no cars coming in either direction. She was just fine with that. And she didn’t mind most of the traffic. She did look at it and tensed occasionally, but didn’t really spook once. Some people, very politely, slowed way down and pulled to the far side of the road, others sped right by at 45 mph. She only was concerned, if we were right by the road when cars went right by us.
I didn’t go all the way to Pisgah. We turned back after a mile or so. Towards the end, she started to whinny. I think that she was getting a little uncomfortable being that far out of range of other horses. She did get an answering whinny from a horse a few fields away. She stood up really tall and whinnied again, like… “Over here! Where are you?!” I looped the lead over her rump and had her yield to me a couple of times to reassert that I was to be the focus, not some random equine.
From then on, I asked her to back whenever she whinnied, as her attention would draw away from me. I want her to learn to look to me for reassurance, not call out to the world looking for other horses to reassure her. This also helped her travel more slowly on the way home.
It was good to get her out and see how she is on her own and in new situations. Tomorrow we will be back to work… and eventually we should be riding down this road to trails!
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