This week I didn’t ride so much, but went back to work on a hole in her training that I knew was there. When I first brought out a bottle of fly spray, Bonita got all white eyed and backed into the corner of her stall, entirely freaked. I had left that all alone, while working on other things, figuring that I would return to work on it later. Now that flies (and more common at this barn, mosquitos) are here, that time has come.
I’ve never been much of a fly spray gal. None of my horses cared too much the few times that I did spray them, so I didn’t have much experience in training a horse to tolerate this. I brought out a spray bottle filled with water, haltered Bonita and worked the stall. My first goal was to spray her until she stopped moving, then praise her. After the first couple of spritzes, she decided that she had had enough and reverted to pushing her shoulder into me and trying to pin my against the wall. This is what she used to do when anything scared her. I went back to what I used to deal with this before.
I hold the cheekpiece of her halter, bring her head towards me and down a bit. Then I ask her to step her shoulder away from me. This worked and calmed her somewhat. I then continued on with spraying her. I kept ahold of her halter and moved with her as she turned circles in the stall. I did not try to stop her and just kept spraying her. If her feet stopped, I stoppeds spraying immediately, praised and stroked her.
By the end of the first session, she had done a number of circles in the stall, but would stop after just a couple of sprays. The second session was much shorter and she calmed down and stood much more quickly. Now I can spray her in the barn ailse. She does back away from me a few steps, but will then stand. She’s not yet totally okay with it. I will continue until she is. My goal is for her to stand ground tied while being sprayed.
Saturday night, I added a ride … after the fly spray. I did two turns each way on the lunge first to test the waters. Then rode two reined for a while. I unclipped the cavesson reins and we finished our ride on the snaffle only. We rode into the evening under lights. She did well, even in the dark, spooky corners, just looking a little more carefully.
I rode again Sunday morning. I didn’t bother to lunge this time, instead doing a short bit of in hand work to focus her. We had a good ride in the arena working on transitions. I also started working on large, loose serpentines at the walk, getting her used to the idea of bending and turning off the outside leg and supporting outside rein. I rode through the pattern for the Intro A test a couple of times too.
I also took my jacket off while mounted and rode over to the fence with it over her withers. She was just fine with that and didn’t even jump when I tossed it on the ground. After that, I opened the gate and we had our first ride out of the arena. We went down the path to the turnouts and rode around the last one, repeating our practice of serpentines and bending. She was more looky, but didn’t spook or have any issues going out alone. What a good girl!
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