Ahead of Schedule

Sometimes it's been easy for me to feel discouraged lately. I so miss taking lessons and the consistent progress that you can make with feedback like that. I've also been lacking consistency this winter for a few reasons and of course that means a lack of progress as well. 

But sometimes it is so clear that we have come so far and tonight was one of those times.

Squeeeeee! Look at her :) 

(Not at my messy lines)

She was soooo good! From last fall when I couldn't get near her with a running clipper to tonight with her standing stock still, even falling asleep sometimes, while I got both sides clipped. Tomorrow I'm going to bring it the rest of the way back in more of a trace clip but this was a great place to end while she was still being good. It's a little higher in the front than it should be but for my first time clipping a horse I'll take it!

Look at her little clipped spots!! She is just the most adorable little thing in the world.

Before this we had a great, if slightly discouraging, ride (so much for my plan from last week). She was feeling fresh and slightly naughty most likely because it's the first time I've ridden in about two weeks. She didn't do anything really bad but she was resistant and was really having trouble bending to the left. This is normal for her but she was completely ignoring my leg and in January I was starting to feel like she really had that figured out. She was getting so soft and nice and bendy so going back to stiff pony was tough for me. It's not like I can expect her to just maintain on two weeks off but still rough.

Tomorrow my plan is to finish clipping and either ride or lunge. I'd rather lunge her but last week I was having trouble getting her to bend to the left on the lunge and at least when I'm on her back I have more ability to enforce it so we'll see. Then on Wednesday she gets a well deserved break :)

Crazy Progress

In a few ways the last week has been about progress. First of all, I have a dressage lesson!!! It is on a 4^th level schoolmaster which will be incredible and it is at a barn that I would love to move Katai to. I set the lesson up partly so that I can figure out if I would like to take lessons with this instructor in the future and partially so that I can ask questions about boarding there. It seriously seems too good to be true with WAY nicer facilities than I am at now, closer to home, and although at a higher cost it is still reasonable. I am concerned that they may not have any openings or have a wait list so I am anxious to talk to the instructor at my lesson on Monday.

The other progress has been with Katai. We are having another nasty cold streak so I decided to just do ground work on Monday as well as treating hooves and feeding supplements. With my concerns about Katai’s heavy coat and my ability to ride her even lightly if it gets around freezing I’ve made clipper desensitization a priority. Since I seem to have misplaced my other trimmer I picked up one of those noisy little Wahl clippers at the feed store to use instead.

Mostly I have been able to desensitize Katai to everything but there have been two things that are so far that she wants nothing to do with and those are/were clippers and fly spray. NOTHING else has given me anywhere near the trouble as those have but for whatever reason on Monday she was extremely calm. I was able to rub them all over her while on and even trimmed a bit of her long mane hair since I needed to get her used to that other sound.  I was extremely impressed and gave her a break during our time tonight so that I don’t push too hard and burn her out.

 

Speaking of Sweater Weather

 

I think I’m going to need to do a trace clip at some point. Pony has four inch long icky hair and her eyeballs were sweating after a short amount of trotting. I had to walk her for about half an hour alternating cooler and bare to cool her to the point where I was comfortable putting her out and that was only because it wasn’t windy since she was still a bit wet. I’ve never clipped a horse before but I’ve clipped a lot of goats for dairy shows and 4-H so I get the concept however I don’t have a clipper.

I did have a trimmer but it mysteriously disappeared and it wouldn’t have done the job anyway. I was mainly using it for desensitization since it was useless for anything I wanted to do including trimming her bridle path. That means that I am in the market for a clipper. No one at the barn has them so there aren’t any that I can borrow. As mostly casual trail riders my fellow boarders don’t have the need since they mainly stay at the walk and don’t ride unless it is nice out with only a couple of exceptions.

I’m hoping to stay in the $90-$150 range and it doesn’t need to be extremely high powered since I’m mainly planning on doing a light trace clip on a very small horse as needed during this time of the year. I’m willing to take my time but I want them to last and not be toooo noisy since it will already take a lot of desensitization. Do any of you have any suggestions of what works well or what to stay away from?

I've be looking at these and these.

In other news I was at the barn again tonight but I didn’t have a lot of time since I was going to hang out with EJ (my new boyfriend?) so I just did some stuff on the ground and medicated Katai’s hooves. Her new bridle came in the mail yesterday so I spent some time getting that set up and isn’t it cute!! I also worked with her on how to properly respond to pressure on one side. She’s been getting pretty frazzled when I ask her to yield her hindquarters and has been backing up and throwing her head around so I wanted to take it back a couple of steps and work from the ground. She figured it out fairly quickly and was much more relaxed with me on the ground.