Just came across these tiktoks from 2020. Gosh what a hot mess the pandemic made me. It was a very stressful time but I forged two long distance relationships with two very special people NL Equestrian Horsemanship & Bodywork
I'm sure there are many many other tiktoks that were created to keep us entertained but I'll spare you that horror 😆
Little Penny has moved yards and things have been going well for her and her small human.
So well in fact that they progressed to off the lead rein but in doing so they found a problem.
Penny appears to very worried about walking around the school or out h*cking "by herself". In the school she will nap then make a beeline for the instructor if she hasn't got a leader. If other ponies are in the school she takes her confidence from then and is absolutely fine.
Claire and I took Penny into the school to work with her out on the end of a 12ft line. The anxiety was evident not only about being on her own but also the external environmental factors such as the arena banners and jump wings in the corners caused her worry as well as the arena fence.
I set her and Claire up with a seemingly simple but very effective exercise of walking the rail. The objective is for Penny to walk along the rail away from Claire and Claire had to keep in line with Penny's ribs to make sure that Penny was going ahead.
This took some time to set up but the change in Penny's confidence was very evident.
Claire is going to continue this for homework and I'll see them again to add some more self confidence building exercises in 😊
Regalo and I haven't had a proper bridleless session for a few years now.
When the stifle was diagnosed and then he had surgery its just been an endless stream of rehab and building him back up with a couple of extra illneses thrown in along the way.
A few months ago I cantered him bridleless because something iffy was going on and I couldn't work out if it was him or I was blocking him with my reins somehow.
What I found during that session was that on the left rein all was fine but on the right rein I felt like the school needed to be a couple of metres wider for him to be able to bend through the corners. Which sounds ridiculous because he's just a dot.
As we've continued through the pole exercises set by Euro Vet Physio the improvement in the canter is now starting to come tenfold. Regalo obtains and maintains canter well on both reins and is soft and balanced on the turns.
Tonight we did our whole ride bridleless. We were a little rusty but it was lovely to be having these conversations with him again.
In fact when we got to the canter part he was actually enthusiastic to go and kept offering me canter every now and again throughout the rest of the session. Regalo? Offer canter? Repeatedly? 😮
Someone's definitely feeling good 😆
A couple of days ago I saw Julie and Thornton for some help with mounting.
Thornton has had some previous poor experience which caused him to feel anxious about it. Julie has worked hard to help him resolve this and firmly believed that he was now OK with being mounted but she herself had anxiety about it.
Other people can mount and have mounted Thornton without issue but when Julie tries to put her foot in the stirrup he backs away and it can take several attempts to get her on.
What I found is that Thornton does still have anxiety about the mounting.
Julie has owned Thornton since he was very young and he's now 11 (I think, Julie will correct me if I'm wrong). Because she has had him for so long, the pair are incredibly emotionally connected. Despite Thornton standing still at the block and others being able to mount him without a problem Julie is subconsciously picking up on Thorntons underlying tension, even though everything around her is saying that he's fine.
I agree with Julie's subconscious. I felt it the second that I picked up those reins and read his body language. The reason Julie feels it but nobody else does is due to the emotional connection that they have.
I could be having the worst day ever and none of my clients would know, but the second I walk through my front door my husband would know instantly that I wasn't ok because of our emotional connection.
Thornton holds his sh!t together well and puts on a mask of "everything is OK and I'm fine" when inside he's worrying. I had to open Pandora's box and allow and encourage him to show me how he truly felt so that I could help him. He was very receptive and tried very hard but his anxiety really became obvious to see.
Once I'd helped him through it I had Julie replicate the work that I'd done. There wasn't time in the session for me to get Julie into the saddle but I left her with the homework of continuing the exercise until she felt confident to get on.
Yesterday I got sent this video
I was nothing short of blessed to spend time with Penny and Teddy.
Teddy pulled back and ran off when Penny was loading him to bring him to live with her. Eventually she got him loaded and he was very quiet on the way home.
Since then he's refused to go near the trailer.
Teddy is an anxious boy and he was showing a lot of stress behaviours even at the sight of the trailer. Keeping him below threshold and diffusing his tension without blowing him up was key to helping him and he did exceptionally well.
Penny is a hilarious and adorable human so I had a wonderful time coaching her through her new handling and loading of Teddy once I'd helped him find his confidence.
Safe travels Team Teddy!
Can you tell I was excited to start our latest 12 weeks of pole exercises?
Regalo and I really enjoyed this morning's session.
Pole plan created and prescribed by Euro Vet Physio
Roo ( Hound Hoof and Home ) has been very busy recently so she wanted to work on some connection from the ground. This was perfect really as Saffy was a little on edge at the start of the session.
First step was to restart the pole exercises set by Euro Vet Physio which had lapsed.
After that I set them a lovely exercise to work on Roo's energy control.
The seemingly simple pattern required Roo to match Saffy's energy to keep her shoulder in line with Saffy's at all times.
Definitely not as easy as Roo makes it look here 😊
We had to take a brief interlude from ridden stuff for Becky and Flyer as they were awaiting a saddle fit.
Saddle now refitted and they're ready to rock 😃
Normalise not hating yourself for not having chance or feeling motivated to do stuff with your horse.
We found a new way to make very important decisions in our house.
Someone had to be in charge of getting the jazzies out of Pickle.
He's such a playful, confident little chap and loves to run and buck.
Of course we find it adorable and hilarious but also quietly remind ourselves that we're grateful that he's the size that he is 😳
