Backward Steps and Yawning!

Wow, yesterday was interesting. Halla was not with me in the round pen. She was having trouble slowing down her walk and trot even on line, but since she's more relaxed (sometimes) when at liberty, we moved on.

That definitely didn't help. I had a horse that couldn't get herself under control. I could get a trot from her, but only because she was tired. Walking was not really an option.  She was having trouble changing directions, trying to switch back to the left, taking off again when things didn't go right. She wasn't seeing my cues. She was just in robo-drive. I even walked out of the round pen at one point while she was circling. That got her attention. I took a moment to think, gain my composure. Let her do the same and breathe.

Eventually she was able to walk calmly in both directions. We were still having some hiccups with directional changes but rather than having her get upset again I haltered her and we walked and worked on other things while she cooled down. She was too worn out for more of that crap. It took her a long time to cool down and dry out.

We did a lot of quiet but sometimes mentally hard things that we've been working on lately, and we made progress!

Still not cool with the mounting process... That one is requiring some creativity on my part, and a lot of patience. We are making progress, but she's still stiff.

By the end I had this horse. Thank goodness.

Relaxed, reaching out, interacting.

Then we both took a nap. That was mentally and physically exhausting. 

I went out later and we had a short session and it went very well. No round pen. Calm, interactive, no fuss. 

Juniper really wanted some attention so I took her for a short walk.

She's the cutest. 

 A friend of mine (my equine dentist) wants us to get her trains dto pack ao she can pack water and equipment up to places on her land that aren't accessible to motorized equipment. Wouldn't that be fun? She's working on a Palouse native prairie reclamation project. Totally worthwhile too!

Halla watched us the whole time but pretended she wasn't waiting for us when we got back.

While Juniper and I were having a good butt-scratching session Halla came up and joined in. She stood there and yawned and yawned and touched my hand and arm and yawned some more, then started specifically requesting scratches. She's never come up and relaxed and yawned with me like that. I think we made some huge progress yesterday. That's a big, big deal.