Tuesday 11 November 2014

Hissy fits

I successfully completed my first lunchtime madcap dash to turn the girls out today & thankfully they were angels as always. *swoon* ♡
It was such a glorious sunny moment when I turned them out that I would have loved nothing more than to throw the tack on Nancy & go for a hack in the woods with K on "a leash" - aka leadrope and head collar she is such a pet to walk calmly alongside N, which in turn keeps Nancy happy hacking "alone". They are actually wonderfully complementary creatures. I am so lucky to have then both!
Sadly I had to go back to work, but perhaps the nasty stinging cold of last Thursday & Friday may not be wholly upon us just yet - Yay!  That gives me hope & a warm fuzzy feeling inside that Autumn may stick around for a little longer yet ☺

She has not developed spots, the mirror is *LeGasp* dirty

Anyways, I went back to the yard in the evening to bring them in & decided to ride Nancy and lunge K in the pessoa afterwards if time. Before any tacking up was done however, I tied both ladies in the wash bays; picked their hooves & sprayed their frogs with the fun blue Klausan (sp?) spray. That their new barefoot trimmer recommended I buy for them and showed me exactly what to do for them on her return visit Saturday to check how K's hooves are holding up as we transition her to barefoot. One day at a time, her penchant for demanding attention by stamping/dragging her front feet across the ground has previously worn her feet oddly and required her to be shod again - but that was with a "normal" farrier who sadly wasn't always the best time keeper for our appointments which meant K's feet got too small & she hurt herself. So far this new farrier is great, and we're working together to hopefully make this transition painless & permanent for K & my purse strings ☺ Thankfully all is going really well & I have been truly blessed, that she hasn't take an ouchy or lame step *knock-on-wood*

Kika got to go back to her stable & scoff her feed while Nancy and i tried to rekindle some of the magic from our lessons last week. *pout* It wasn't meant to be magical as Little Miss Nancy threw her best hissy fits & locked her neck as often as she could in protest to everything I did, which outside of our warm up walk seemed to seriously offend her. Methinks a combination of not riding since our lesson on Friday and the reintroduction of a flash strap (on trainers recommendation) combined to make her very surly. 
Now surly Nancy is still nowhere near Kika's hissy fits, the worst Nancy did was jump (she thinks herself rebellious & bucking) into a canter transition. She also did a very good impression of a naughty giraffe - sticking her head in the air, hollowing her back and speeding up. She alternated that with locking her neck/jaw and suckling back on herself into choppy annoying strides - if i knew how to ask for such fancy dressage movements i bet she wouldn't be so willing to give them to me. Her inner dressage diva is dying to get out. I just need to figure out how to train mine ;-)
Despite her attempts to detail our spin, I stuck to my guns and kept asking for rein changes and trot/canter & trot/walk transitions till she softened and gave me two good transitions for each on both reins.

I'll take a Nancy hissy fit over Kika's everyday of the week & twice on Sundays ;-)

Sorry I didn't manage to snap any Kika photos today

Although I really should give K more credit, she is not the moody mare she used to be. She is much more settled in her brain, body & work these days so I cannot complain at all. She is a joy to work with, yet will always have her quirks, opinions and own spice to keep things from ever being predictable or boring. 
As i had a lazy weekend, to let us all chillax and marinate the learnings after our full on (for us) week of lessons. Kika hadn't been in tack since Thursday's lesson. I'm sure she wouldn't have been a problem to ride this evening, but i was running out of time so slapped the pessoa on her for a refresher course of lunging. She was an absolute angel as we played with transitions, changes of rein and circle size to start the process of rebuilding some of the back etc muscles she's lost due to my uber busy last 6 - 12 months. 

Tomorrow evening I hope to ride Kika & brush up ground work with Nancy, hopefully this winter we can get to better grips with her lunge work. Last winter she preferred to trot/run than listen to me when we lunged. First thing we're going to establish tomorrow is "stand" means stop...I think if i can get that cemented it'll be a start. Although obviously it will take multiple sessions, unlike Kika who loves an excuse to slow down...Nancy is not always looking for a reason to get out of doing work. ;-)

13 comments:

  1. Thats why I like K though her spunk!

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    1. Funnily enough you are not alone in that opinion. I think my more shares it although she does love having her chats with Nancy as well ☺

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  2. Gotta love a good hissy fit!

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    1. Especially when they think they are being so bad yet it is all still so innocent.

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  3. I'm sorry that it wasn't the best ride, but it sounds like you worked through it and ended on a good note. Sometimes you get more out of that than a good ride :)

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    1. I completely agree, every ride shouldn't be great as if it is chances are we're not pushing ourselves or the horses hard enough. Although some days need to be kept drama days ;-)

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    2. Pushing "hard" is not what I meant, pushing our boundaries is what i mean *blush*

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  4. i love the spotted pony pictures! hissy fits are frustrating and always have me questioning myself... but sounds like you stayed with it and accomplished some good work!

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    1. It was deff all kinds of ugly at times when she careened around like an angry giraffe & i deff questioned what i was doing wrong - prob loads and can be quite disheartening. i'd have been all kinds of annoyed at myself if we hadn't managed to turn things around and salvage some positives from the ride.
      I try to keep that goal in mind, no matter how ugly it is at the start, so long as we can end on some good - we have achieved something and can regroup to try again another day.

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  5. I'm working with a green mare right now who is taking forever to learn not to just run around me in circles when lunging. I feel your pain!

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    1. I didn't actually end up working with N that night, luckily she is a steady Eddie type and doesn't go gaga if not worked all the time.

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  6. I'm glad the barefoot transition is going well so far. :D Sorry about the hissy fits, but you worked through it so it's all good. Good luck with the longeing. Chrome is one of those that is happy to stop lol.

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    1. Nancy is the opposite, she wants to trot all the time. Or she did when I first got her, as she was so good to ride i stopped lunging and just rode instead *blush*

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