Walker and Ellie

In the last couple of days, Walker and I have been playing in the outdoor arena where there is a very thick stand of trees and brush along the eastern side. Two nights ago, Walker was very unhappy about "the forest" as everyone refers to it. There were strange noises coming from within it, and Walker can be very reactive to noises coming from dark places, so it came as no surprise to me that he was nervous. Last night, the reason for the noises ventured out far enough for me to see and it was an averaged sized armadillo! They are shy creatures, so it did not stay exposed long, but Walker did take a look at it and when he did, I urged him to chase it away. He was much calmer after that. The first night, we did lots of partial disengagement of the hind quarters and small circles all along that part of the rail, and it really took about an hour before Walker got softer as he went by. This is why sometimes, it takes so much longer for us to do what I had planned, and then sometimes what I had planned goes out the window! I just tell myself to take the time it takes so it takes less time. Otherwise, we would never be playing bridle-less, or doing long distance weave patterns on the ground, or all the other lovely things we can do now that would have been impossible even two or three years ago.
One thing I am trying to figure out is getting more impulsion out of Walker on the circle game. Even when I change it up, he does not seem very interested in it. I am playing with backing him up on the circle to see how that works to want him to bring up his life, and that did seem to get him more connected to me. The bulls-eye pattern seems to help as well, so I will continue to play with it, and try to remember not to make it a job!
I also got to play with Ellie the yearling last night, and she is really getting into the program. We played friendly game as I rubbed her all over, which she is accepting nicely now. She still wants to play dominance games with her head, but we continue to play with that and I am sure it will get better with time. We played porcupine game, and she did a couple of lovely cross over steps, forehand around the hindquarters and hindquarters around the forehand, so I did not stay there long. Circle game is getting better as well as she circled once in each direction, one lap without me following her! I am not entirely confident in her draw to me yet, but it is pretty good, so I took the rope off and she followed me all over the arena and went over a series of poles, all without any rope! She no longer squeals or whinnies to the other horses, so I do think she is feeling much more confident in my presence. What fun to be able to play with a horse someone has not already ruined.