Tonight, I really wanted to pick up where Tina and I left off yesterday. All the horses were in the west pasture so I walked out to get her and spent some time with the herd. Reka and M were off on their own and hanging out with Steve and Kendall while they fixed some fence. That was very cute. What was very, very interesting was when Steve and Kendall left to go back to the house, Reka left M and followed those 2! I yelled across the pasture for them to act a certain way, backing up facing Reka to continue drawing her in. How great was that!? They pet her and rubbed her a bit and then went back to leaving the pasture. Reka then came cantering over to M and Tina and me. Reka and M then followed Tina and I back to the barn.
Tina and I went back to the hanging obstacle. She was pretty sure she was in danger as soon as we got close to it, so I pulled things out of the way to make it easier for her. I sent her through and she scuttled quickly through it. However, the rest of the times through she walked tensely until finally she walked relaxed. At that point we left and did some other things like the teeter totter. Then I took her in for some more clipper practice. She's terrified of the clippers. I pushed her too hard the first time. I am going to study the horseanality material for Right-Brained Introverts again. I know I need to do things slow with her, but maybe some of the material will remind me of some other things I introduce her to more scary items. She didn't seem flinchy today, so that was an improvement.
I tied Reka off and played with her trim prep and feet handling. She's doing great. Kendall then came running out in her silly kid way and scared the holy heck out of Reka! She was tied and felt the halter at the poll, but her it took her a few moments to realize there was no release there. When she calmed down after a few moments, I had KK be my apprentice and we worked on Reka's confidence with KK's jumping around. Reka was fairly quick to calm down. She is a very calm horse and she learns quickly. She's getting more and comfortable with us humans every day.
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