We're Riding!!

Well today was an awesome day!!

We took all the horses for a walk around the track today. They seemed like they really enjoyed it! Then we decided to ride for a while! I hopped on Eddie and he was okay, but got sort of... Well I don't know how to put it, he just gets silly and gets extroverted. So I did was Mark Rashid talks about in his book. Make the 'wrong' thing hard, and the good thing easy. Which equals, convincing the horse that it's easier to do what you want than to do what he wants, in a very passive manner. So I hopped off, and sent him in some circles at the trot. Not what he wanted to do. Especially in the mud! So after he 'told' me he was done by facing me and going "I get it!" I stopped, and got back on. We rode around for a little bit, and he got extroverted again. by getting 'extroverted' I mean that he starts to lean into the pressure, wring his head and try to bite Scout's rump. *shrugs* That's just Eddie! Anyway, I hopped off again and this time it was much shorter of a time he had to circle. He really wanted to come back in! So I got on again. He got a little snarky one more time but I was about to get off and I could see him thinking, "No! Stay up there! Please!"

So I did! And we had a lovely session just introducing riding again! He was a little spooky because it was a tad windy, so I didn't stay on too long, but it was a lovely session! And my confidence doesn't look like it's going anywhere. I had the courage to polietly say, "No thank you, please don't be silly!" And he responded quite nicely because I did. I didn't get mad or frustrated, it was more of, "You want to be silly... Let me help you!"

I'm so excited that I have the key to his brain. I don't think this spring will be a repeat of last year, Lord willing. I know exactly why God put me through that test last spring and I don't think that I'm going through the same thing this year. :) I'm very excited!

                        ~Lea & Eddie~