Riding on home
28 September 2009 21:59![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
glenatronSo the Clinic was great fun, but a bit of a non-event for the Donkster as we couldn't take him in the end. For anyone who missed her follow-up post to my last one, ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
sleepsy_mouse brought him in on Thursday morning and noticed that both his hind legs were absolutely huge. There was no way he was fit to travel, let alone work on a clinic.
Consequently we had to go along as spectators ( withsleepsy_mouse dashing home on Friday to check on Donk and call the vet out when his legs were no better ) and came home a day early so we could play with our horse's today.
So today we had a bit of a lie in and then rode some horses.
Zorro and I set out to go up the hill and have a little explore round the area where Donk was spooky yesterday. I had some ideas from the clinic about using the bit to bring his attention back when he started staring into the distance and I thought that spooky corner would be a good place to test them, and it did seem to work, once I was able to get him listening to the bit a little his feet got unstuck and we could move on. Another useful tool to have on hand.
When we reached the corner of the field I was planning to ride around, Zorro was looking wistfully at the path up onto the Punchbowl, so I figured we could follow that up and around a bit.
Rather than going on a loop as we have before, we kept on straight along the route that you've probably seen from pictures of my walk to the ponies.
Zorro stares across the valley. A main road runs along the other side and the motion of the traffic absolutely fascinated him, to the point it was hard to get him to stop staring at it and move on.
Eventually we did move on, with frequent pauses to stare at the road again, or at ponies we passed, until after a while we came to a gate and passing through it to another wooded track, a short hill and a corner later and we spotted some opportune grazing:
Pony in the front garden!
This was basically pretty awesome for me as we've been living fairly close to the yard for about six months now but it's the first time we've actually got either of the ponies up to the house. As we came through the gate I noticed that we have a couple of old tarps lying across most of the path around the side of the house and was glad that Zorro is very familiar with that particular Natural Horsemanship cliche.
Zorro got to have a few bites of tasty tasty front lawn, saving me a bit of mowing, and then we turned back for the yard and had a trip home with far fewer unplanned stops, except at one point where we saw some of the ponies.
Zorro had to stare at this little guy for quite some time before we could move on. I don't really mind him staring at stuff like this most of the time because once he's accepted it and we move on it's never a problem for him again. I know some people prefer to keep their horse going forward at all times and I can see the sense in that too, but letting Zorro check stuff out and when possible letting him approach things that are bothering him is working out really well for us at the moment.
So that was our day's adventure. Not a particularly epic journey, but one with significance for us...
sleepsy_mouse brought him in on Thursday morning and noticed that both his hind legs were absolutely huge. There was no way he was fit to travel, let alone work on a clinic. Consequently we had to go along as spectators ( with
sleepsy_mouse dashing home on Friday to check on Donk and call the vet out when his legs were no better ) and came home a day early so we could play with our horse's today.So today we had a bit of a lie in and then rode some horses.
Zorro and I set out to go up the hill and have a little explore round the area where Donk was spooky yesterday. I had some ideas from the clinic about using the bit to bring his attention back when he started staring into the distance and I thought that spooky corner would be a good place to test them, and it did seem to work, once I was able to get him listening to the bit a little his feet got unstuck and we could move on. Another useful tool to have on hand.
When we reached the corner of the field I was planning to ride around, Zorro was looking wistfully at the path up onto the Punchbowl, so I figured we could follow that up and around a bit.
Rather than going on a loop as we have before, we kept on straight along the route that you've probably seen from pictures of my walk to the ponies.
Zorro stares across the valley. A main road runs along the other side and the motion of the traffic absolutely fascinated him, to the point it was hard to get him to stop staring at it and move on.
Eventually we did move on, with frequent pauses to stare at the road again, or at ponies we passed, until after a while we came to a gate and passing through it to another wooded track, a short hill and a corner later and we spotted some opportune grazing:
Pony in the front garden!
This was basically pretty awesome for me as we've been living fairly close to the yard for about six months now but it's the first time we've actually got either of the ponies up to the house. As we came through the gate I noticed that we have a couple of old tarps lying across most of the path around the side of the house and was glad that Zorro is very familiar with that particular Natural Horsemanship cliche.
Zorro got to have a few bites of tasty tasty front lawn, saving me a bit of mowing, and then we turned back for the yard and had a trip home with far fewer unplanned stops, except at one point where we saw some of the ponies.
Zorro had to stare at this little guy for quite some time before we could move on. I don't really mind him staring at stuff like this most of the time because once he's accepted it and we move on it's never a problem for him again. I know some people prefer to keep their horse going forward at all times and I can see the sense in that too, but letting Zorro check stuff out and when possible letting him approach things that are bothering him is working out really well for us at the moment.
So that was our day's adventure. Not a particularly epic journey, but one with significance for us...
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Date: 28 Sep 2009 23:33 (UTC)no subject
Date: 29 Sep 2009 13:39 (UTC)no subject
Date: 29 Sep 2009 02:23 (UTC)i love that bottom pic, it looks awesome. and that tiny pony in the distance looks super clear & detailed. nice shot.
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Date: 29 Sep 2009 07:22 (UTC)no subject
Date: 29 Sep 2009 15:45 (UTC)no subject
Date: 29 Sep 2009 16:16 (UTC)no subject
Date: 29 Sep 2009 17:23 (UTC)no subject
Date: 29 Sep 2009 21:00 (UTC)