Here's my final video with Mick! Great experience! I'm looking forward to next year's challenges! Here's the URL to the YouTube link, probably easier to view than posting the video. https://youtu.be/sBpS5s-SCmY ...
JR has such a great personality and is so much fun to work with. I wanted to showcase some of his really awesome skills as well as show the improvements we've made during this challenge. To start, JR is excellent at posting up to the mounting block, so I wanted to see if he would do it at liberty. This was our first attempt, and he did not disappoint. I also ground-tied him to pick his feet. I haven't tried to ground-tie him before, but I felt confident about testing him, and he did great.
Then, JR went through a gauntlet of facing very scary experiences. JR lacks self-confidence, so it's good for him to learn to handle these things calmly. I set up some cones with flags and a couple helpful dog skeletons to send him through, got him up close and personal with the life-sized fake horse that he lost his mind over when he first saw, and sent him through puddles of water.
Next, one of JR's big struggles has been HQ yields. He bends his neck and turns his head to the inside. We've been working on this, and it was really good moving to the right. Moving to the left is his "bad" side, so while he still has some neck turning/head movement, I can really see improvement from where we started.
For our last exercise, I've been working with JR on sending him in a circle while I stand in place, walk down the arena, or kneel down. He has it down when I stand in place and adjusts well when I start walking, though we have a couple moments when he gets goosed. He gets a little confused when I first kneel down and stops, but moves back on the circle when I ask. It's a work in progress.
Finally, I wanted to end with some fun. For our Halloween event, I dressed JR up as the big bad wolf in grandma's clothing to my red riding hood. He wore a wig with curlers, eyeglasses, pearl necklace, shawl, and fur leggings for over 3 hours. Talk about a brave boy!
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I continue to be so impressed with Lenny. He's made such progress in these few months that we've been working together. Farrier prep was super hard for him at first. He had a hard time picking up his feet and keeping them held up and did try to avoid this. Although this is definitely not his favorite thing to do and he's not great at it yet; however, he is willing and does continue to make improvement. I just love this guy! Not only is he trying, he's a sweetheart through all of it. ...
This week with apollo was Farrier challenge week! He made sure to remind us he's a stallion! I begun by roping his front hoove first, once i got it around his hoove I applied pressure to ask him to lift it, the first lift was quite good but after that he started to repeatedly paw at the ground . When I didn't remove pressure he resorted to rearing repeatedly too.In the end with some help we got a better lift and hold compared to his previous behavior. I then went on to rope his hind leg with no issues, when i asked for a lift he did it gracefully multipule times getting good holds and releases! Ultimatly he did good in the end and shown some improvment! ...
I’m having trouble loading any videos. 😔 The app on my phone keeps crashing when I try and it failed on my computer, too. I tried uninstalling/reinstalling the app to no avail. If anyone has any other tips, please share!
Otherwise, you’ll just have to imagine me roping JR’s legs and lifting them for farrier prep. He’s good about his feet and did really well, but it was my first time using the ropes, so this exercise was more for my education than his.
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Wow! It is so much easier to use leg ropes on a Caspian pony than it is on a Tennessee walker. Who knew???? 🤣 Genesis did great with the leg ropes and I'm really proud of her! And I like to think I improved a little sense the last time I attempted this challenge. I could have probably held it a little longer on her back leg, so there's always room for improvement for me. ...
The Horse Shelter- The regular weekly work, exercise and walking over poles has improved Scooter’s movement. Because he has stifle issues, I have been working for weeks to prepare him for the farrier challenge. Besides getting him in better shape, I have been running my hands from his shoulders and hips down his leg to hoof. Later I just picked up front feet, but ran hands down back legs. Towards the end I added back feet. I always keep all feet under him which is most comfortable. Last week when I picked up his left rear foot and cupped the hoof in my hand, there was a loud Pop! Our trainer checked his movement with me and thankfully Scooter was moving just fine. So this week I had the video rolling the first try. I was very pleased that he stood still, gave me all 4 feet easily. Notice he actually cocked both back feet to almost offer them to me! The last hind was the one that was his most uncomfortable and the one that had popped previously. He offered it up very nicely! I was very happy with Scooter’s farrier progress. ...