Day Three - Little Things

Today I worked on a lot of little things with my mustang.

I caught him in his stall and took him out to the arena. Everyday his leading improves more and more. I'm not focusing too much on refinement right now; as long as he goes with me and doesn't fall behind or charge ahead, I let him set his bubble of space. Once he gets more comfortable with being close to me, we'll get "proper" on the lead.

I put him in the round pen and practiced walking up to him to clip the lead on his halter. He did well with that, so I turned him loose of his lead rope. I went and cleaned his stall, then came back with a surcingle. I started working on some little odds and ends. Here's what we did today:

More rope work - flicking it over his back, neck, and rump. Also looped it around his neck, right behind his head and flapped it around to desensitize the top of his head. Then put it around his girth area and worked on his barrel - elbow to flank, tightening, flapping and just in general being "weird" with the rope. He wasn't too concerned. He already gets this look on his face when he gets comfortable that is like "WHAT are you doing??"

I've already told him a time or two that people are just strange, he'll get used to it. Haha

I put the surcingle on him and tightened it up. Not as tight as the saddle will be, but enough that he could feel it. He packed that around for a little while today.

We started work on disengaging the hindquarters and I gave him a pop quiz when I put him back in his stall - he passed with flying colors.

I introduced him to a jumping human. At first he freaked out and looked at me like I'd grown three heads. That was by far the thing that took him the longest to accept and boy was I glad when he did... My legs were burning! As soon as he accepted it, he dropped his head and looked half asleep when I did it again - and again.

We wandered out into the arena together from the round pen. There we worked on a bit of lunging and at one point he got a little too spun up and got away from me. All he did was end up trotting away, then stopping to sniff around. I strolled over, picked up the rope, and we got back to work. No big deal.

Back in his stall we had a couple of minor breakthroughs. First, he came and drank out of a bucket of water that I offered him. Secondly, he got all excited when I came in with his hay and came over to me - instead of me going to him. My standard feeding time gentling routine is working well on him I'd say.

I think I might also have named him, but I'm not 100% sure just yet. The name I'm considering is Jasper. My first EMM horse I had named Onyx and I thought I might go with a gemstone theme for my Makeover horses - of which I plan to have more in the future! Onyx was actually suggested to be named Onyxia - after a black dragon in World of Warcraft. (Yes, I'm a dork who plays WoW - though not very often these days..) I had thought of naming this guy after a red dragon in the game, but so far none of the names I've come across have seemed right. I'm not ruling out a dragon name, I think that would be cool too, but for now it's looking like Jasper might be it.

Here is a Day Three picture - this was back in his stall, still wearing the surcingle:

I was out there alone today, so still no training pictures of he and I together. Not that elementary groundwork makes for thrilling scenes, but I do want to post some pictures of that soon. :)

I also think his graduation from his necktag will be soon. I'm planning to take it off tomorrow. :)