Also, update on his beautifulness when he was feeling his oats the other night. I thought the slow-mo was pretty tight.
Okay! Finished my first week of school and boy it's been a doozy! Posting will probably go down to once a week to once every two weeks, just wanted to let y'all know! In the meantime, Eros just keeps settling in more and more. He's going into and out his stall more confidently, he's nickering at me when I come in the morning and evening. He's really connecting with people and getting lots of attention when we're walking around. It's been such a relief having this huge accomplishment of having him inside, that I've just been coasting with him since school has started. We're not rushing, so it's really nice to have him settling in. Not that we haven't been pushing the boundaries. Last week we got to exploring the arenas for the first time! He was abit hesitant going into the big scary dark alley, but he managed to get his feet moving after a bit and went right in. He walked with my friends horses and even right besides them! That was awesome. He did so exceptionally well with the horses riding around, noises, ect. He only had a butt scoot when we came back outside, but that was because a trailer pulled up and then a truck was coming up at us pulling in on the other side. He handled it great, didn't even pull on the line barely and he came RIGHT BACK to my side. I've also been working on getting him to trot next to me, which he figured out SO fast. He's so freaking smart and I think the reason why he's picking stuff up fast that were hard for him before is he has the space and time to do so. He isn't rushed, everything is calm and he's really starting to realize not everything is super scary, gonna eat me.
My guy has come so far and we have WORKED FOR IT. It's so nice to see him calm and safe but it's not without many days of hard work, tears, laughter and bravery. He's taught me so much, and in the last couple of days he's started to blossom. The videos illustrate him starting to play when I'm lunging. He got super excited and was doing his voluminous trot and canter and it was so fun to watch! ( You can tell but my voice, haha didn't realize how loud I was being, apologies.) He really felt like he was letting loose, in a great way. That was yesterday, and the second video was of us today tying for the first time. I've been practicing with pressure, he'd done such a good job at trying to figure it out and he ended up being stellar with it. I decided to work on going behind him, which has been a struggle for him but as you can see in the video, he's fabulous. Definitely not sure, but instead of reacting he's doing his best to think about stuff. We're doing it y'all, we got a fantastic horse coming along!
I have been so thrilled with our progress! The past two days we've gotten out to the big round pen and Eros has really got to show off his moves! He even played today when he lunged, striking his feet out and doing some cute lil' bucks. It was really nice to see him play today, it's really fun to see his mind in a safe but playful state. We even did an evening sesh with one of our personal horses, I wanted to see if having another horse would give him confidence. Turns out, didn't make that much of a difference. Eros is very confident on his own and doesn't seem to have that much of a draw with other horses. Totally fine. Tonight he even got to get upclose with my friend on her horse and he did such a nice job at facing scary things and overcoming it. He was sticky on our evening session, as he's used to just getting food and that's alright. Super proud of our big man!
Hurray!! Witness our first walk on the property! We went from the back of the barn, to almost the front and he was so calm the whole time. He was taking it all in stride and was checking in with me lots which was so nice. I felt so safe and I think he did too. I am so so so SO proud of this moment. I hope to keep expanding our walking route day by day. Just to get him used to the new surroundings and to understand he's safe wherever he goes. We took that first step today, and I'm just ECSTATIC!!
Alright, first off apologies for the funky angle. HOWEVER, we did it y'all. This is a great representation of how we work, slowly and carefully but still achieving our goals. He did such a good job walking in and out of the pen today I felt confident enough that I could take a video! I then forgot that I was taking a video and decided to take him into the pen right next to his which is a similar but with different things inside. So, secondly apologies for the long break in the middle, but I kept it in just so I could see how long it took us. It took a lot less time then it felt, which was awesome! He was unsure in the new space but looked for me and trusted the process. I'll definitely let the video speak for itself. All of this has been time. Lots of time, effort, problem solving, getting frustrated, gaining baby steps and so on. I'm really proud of how this is turning out and I'm really proud of us!! It's such an honor to show this big boy that he can live without fear. On to more big goals, I can't wait to show y'all when he's finally out and about on the property!
Yesterday was FULL of great moments. We had our break through y'all. We made it through the gate! My mom was watching and we were so surprised it happened we only got the end part in video, but it still has the same impact and shows how calm he was. Before that, I noticed we were kind of stuck and I wanted to try a method to see if I could raise his confidence. I decided to bring in some poles to see what he did. It was hilarious, he had no idea and kept shuffle stepping and kicking the poles forward instead of going over them. Mustangs are wonderful to work with because you have to get so creative! I then sent him out on a lunge circle cause I know he's good at figuring stuff out on his own, and after a few tries he did it! Then we were walking over them beautifully, like he'd done it 100 times over. I started with the gate again and we did our releases, but I used the poles as kind of a touch stone, something that Eros knew he could do and was easy. After that a few times, we were through the gate and turning around. Can't say I was definitely close to tears at the end. I was so thrilled we did it SO calmly, our hard work pays off and I'm so happy I can be working with this guy. He's taught me so much and given me so much, after yesterday I'm starting to see that maybe I'm doing the same for him.
Threw someone else in the ring for a change! Using my trusted friend Madison ( who has great body language and understanding of reactive horses) I put them both to work on some of the normal things I do with Eros. This was about 20 minutes of working him myself and giving Madison an idea of what I do and how it looks. She translated so well and Eros did AMAZING with her. I for sure thought there was going to be more stranger danger but he worked with her just like he worked with me. I couldn't be more proud, especially of the both of them! She even helped me pick up all four feet and work on his ground work too. It was really fun seeing how well he did with Madison and I feel much more excited for the future when he's with his new person! Gives me lots of hope.
The adorable cube eating needed a post of it's own. Look at how calm he looks!!! He's body language is so different from even a few weeks ago.
Hey look at us go! Today we worked on the dreaded small/narrow 'gate' into a tiny area. Oh my gosh, he did better then I expected. Never a butt scoot, just snorting and looking unsure. He listened to me when I guided him through, and we didn't rush it. I made sure to monitor him to avoid getting to the point of 'fear bolting.' and it worked in here. I'm hoping to tackle getting out of his pen again in the near future, I'm excited but nervous. We've worked so hard for this, and we'll continue to work hard no matter the outcome. He also had a big breakthrough in accepting a treat that wasn't hay!!! That was so surprising and very exciting. We had tried for months with grain and cubes. No matter what we did he'd never take it. But today was the day! He awkwardly ate a timothy cube from my hand and it was the best thing ever. he's so cute!! One step closer to being more comfortable in domestication.
We've made some great headway on our gate practice! We've been working alot on those small lunging circles and giving to pressure. Which has done such a great job at setting us up for success. He's now starting to look towards me when he gets scared and he's reacting to pressure in a much more sustainable way. Really proud of us hacking away at this really tough problem patiently and overall calmly. We haven't had a big upset in quite a while and it's so nice. I've also gotten a few offers on him which is so exciting! If you'd like to adopt Eros please message me so we can set up a meeting time!
Yesterday we worked on lunging mostly and trying to hone in things we may have missed in our training. I'm practicing making the circles smaller an him respecting it, and he does really well going to the right, but to the left he pulls hard and braces. This video was when I got that other side doing a lot better, but it's good we're starting to see some holes we need to work on. I'm hoping this will help in the long run when we tackle real life gates again.
Oh my gosh I keep forgetting to post stuff! Me and Eros have been working on our usual, leading, ground work, squeeze game. We're working up to doing the gate again, but I'm taking my time. this video is a clip of some liberty/join up I've been doing. He's gotten so good about coming in now, it's a real treat to see the connection without the line. Eros is living up to his name, he loves his cuddles after.
Hello! Stuff has still been lokey on our end because of the heat. It's just been oppressive, but we're doing a great job at working on fine tuning our ground work. Eros is a high energy horse so today he was very flightly and jumpy, needed to move those feet. I was able to in our evening session because it cooled off. A wind was picking up so there was a lot of stuff flapping and scaring him but we did a great job working through that. I even ended up working on join up and doing some liberty work with him just leading without a line. That's pretty big for him, so I was really proud of that moment tonight. I will be leaving for about a week so Eros gets some time off, I'll hope to update you guys as soon as I'm back on the 8th of August!
Hey y'all! Still trucking, just decided to take a few days off from posting. I've been feeling pretty burnt out and posting was a big bad wall of ugly for awhile. Not for any reason in particular. Eros and I have been working on our squeeze gate religiously, which is hard but good. Going to be a big challenge for us to get over, but every time we work on it, it gets that much better. I do have trouble when the momentum starts to slow down and our progress is tiny little half steps forward and then five steps back. But, exciting stuff did happen and Eros got his front feet done! Trying to get his back feet done, I am able to quickly pick out his back feet and now am just working on duration of time. Put the english saddle on him, turned out okay until he got to trotting the stirrups slipped from their spot and slapped him on the sides. Turned into a full bronc session: scary, but I managed to get through to him and stop him. Thank goodness, and then after that he was trotting like a dream: which is the video after the aftermath. Gave him the day off today, trying to pace my own self out too and let those blisters heal lol. Onwards and upwards!
