Samantha Thorning with Aspen, (On Line, 90 mins) Aspen got trimmed today and was the best she's ever been for the farrier. We didn't get her right hind trimmed as her cut was too sore to pick up her hoof high enough.

Played with leading by the front legs and hind legs and, after speaking with Jenny Trainor who provided some good insight, got some much nicer changes of direction on the circle and improved figure-8's. :) Got a change of direction at the trot @ liberty, and introduced the umbrella as a new item in our friendly game. It absolutely horrified her pasture mates who after a moment of shock and awe took off running away form the arena! She was really curious about it, wanted to small it and put it in her mouth. :)

After that I tried to get her to pose with me with some reindeer antlers on... it goes without saying that she was not impressed by this. I got a few cute pictures of us though :)

 

Even though it was only 10 degrees outside it was absolutely beautiful and relatively warm feeling without the wind blowing. Had a lot of fun with Aspen and played with our new Feather Lines for the first time today - LOVE the FL! It was great to have a light feel on her and allow for more of a Liberty-style interaction.

Played with a few things that I took some video of - circles, figure-8's and sideways. The videos provided lots of helpful feedback and I have some new ideas for how I need to adjust my energy, position, and timing to get a better response from her. If you watch the clips you'll see where there are a few times I just needed to stop and refocus, slow down, and start smaller when it wasn't going as planned. I really need to work on finding a balance of sticking with a task long enough to make a difference and at the same time not getting too direct line.

I saw a pretty good neutral in my circles but when asking for the change of direction I needed to prepare myself (and therefore Aspen) just a bit more by allowing her time to see and understand my request before moving onto the next step. I need to run back farther/faster to keep our energy up and allow her time to come forward and through the turn rather then get stuck and brace against me a little while losing momentum.

In my figure-8's I need to be careful not to have puppet arms and be able to raise my rope/lead zone 1 without lifting my stick at the same time. I also need to step out and run back farther/faster to help encourage a more fluid turn around the buckets.

I'm not overly excited with everything on the tape but am grateful for what I've learned from watching myself and hope to greatly improve it over the next few days. Watch for updates!