A Bit of Brightness

I feel like I must endlessly thank the readers of this blog for putting up with my mental meltdowns. I'm still considering if I want to bring on a boarder or two, but for now... things are looking quite bright.

I really like this kid.
And the lonely sad horse lurking in the background is pretty great, too.

Late last week and over the weekend, I worked on getting Kahlua out with the horses, and while I'm still a bit nervous about her getting hurt, she's decided to be interested in being around the horses and so far, things have been going really well. They think she's fascinating, and she's starting to kick out at the mares and be more assertive when the horses get a bit too invasive with their sniffing. Arya is still trying to show her that she's the boss, but has, so far, been very careful kicking out around her and Kahlua is showing that she's smart enough to get out of situations when she feels she should - i.e. when Bailey reared up in her face trying to get her to play, she noped the F out of there quickly and safely.

So there's a lot of cuteness in my pasture.

I spent Saturday talking horses with a friend and managed to whip up some motivation, so I've been itching to get the horses back into regular work. I have been working/scheming to get Arya on the trailer, so after an unsuccessful hour of lunging and attempted loading on Saturday, I came into Sunday's loading session with a bit more... gumption.

Aforementioned horse friend also took Arya's body condition update photos for New Vocations.
GOSH I LIKE THIS MARE

Bailey was a tough horse to teach to load. She nearly pulled me through the window when I accidentally got my hand wrapped in the lunge line we use to load her, and the resultant rope burn left me unable to close my hand or function at work for a week, and I was compromised for a few weeks before it healed. The lunge line through the window "trick" is our every day routine now (though we've progressed quickly from "lunge line used as winch" to the line being more of a guide to get her straight and focused in) - and logically, it works for my trailer. It has a permanent divider and is a straight load with a step up, so there isn't a good way to walk on next to the horse without a lot of potential danger (even Foxie would kind of end up on top of me when I lead her in, and she was an extremely polite, gentle horse) and it doesn't have a big open back like many of the trailers you will see in the "how to load a horse in a trailer" videos. I watched a handful on Sunday morning and noticed... they're all working with 3+ horse slants without a rear tack, meaning that there was a lot of space to invite a horse into. But because I must work with what I've got, and Arya definitely wasn't just going to step in for me, I decided after a handful of attempts to try out the damn lunge line for her, too.

And guess what, guys.

She basically self loads now.

Pardon my filthy trailer.

I mean, I have to keep practicing, obviously, but I had like... 6-8 great loads with her yesterday. She progressed quickly from needing a fair amount of pulling and a good tap with my dressage whip to get her in (and when she goes in, she goes in fast, so I'm SO glad I'm not in front of her) to just needing a cluck and a guide like Bailey does, and surpassed that - I was able to send her in the last three times without the lunge line, using just my 15' natural horsemanship lead, sending cue and a cluck. The only issue I ran into was getting her to come back out - unlike either of my previous horses, Arya will totally chill in the trailer with the butt bar down, and especially as I had a particularly good flake of hay in the trailer, she was very unwilling to get out. Partially because she doesn't seem to love the step down (ok, who does?) but mostly because the good food was in the box, and she wanted to stay there, thankyouverymuch. I actually had to go in and yank/tap her into going back with my whip because she just... wouldn't come out. The 15' lead really helped with that - because it ended up running down her left flank to me behind her, I could use it to really easily cue her to come back out without needing to step into the trailer and back her. I've only had the lead a few weeks (Thanks, Riding Warehouse, best purchase EVER!) but the length is absolutely perfect for this use and I'm thrilled with it. I need to figure out how to keep said set up when we actually go driving down the road, but all in all... I'm very happy.

Happy moose in a box before realized how serious she was about
refusing to get out of said box

So. She loads now. I plan to do a bit more practice and do a bit of riding at home, and plan to bring her over to Nina's on Friday for her first indoor ride. Her trailer lessons were much easier and more positive than Bailey's and I'm so glad we are over the hardest part of that hump in our training with so little trauma.

Triumphant loading selfie