Today, when I got to the farm, I found myself in a text conversation with my sisters, so didn't go "catch" Lexi right away. Afterwards, as I was pulling items out of my storage space, I heard thundering hooves and looked across to see who was charging around. It was Lexi. She was galloping and gallivanting at the bottom of her paddock. When she saw me she whinnied and charged up to the gate. I got the distinct impression she had been trying to get my attention, and when I wasn't getting her more subtle hints, like nickers and pacing the fence (and probably smiling, or touching various potential targets), she got irritated and decided to see if thundering hooves would make me pay attention to her. I had intended to go straight to riding, but she was so happy I figured I'd better do some fun stuff with her for a bit, so before riding out in the orchards we “played” in the round pen. I put a bunch of "monsters" in there for her to pick from. She went from one to the other. She upended the green bucket. She nuzzled the old saddle pad. She pawed at and tried to eat the tarp. She lined herself up by the mounting block for me (and actually tried to step up on it -- I'm hoping to ask Kevin if he'll help me build a bridge for her if I buy the materials).
And I imagined what it would be like to have a baby, a furry little sweet-faced Lexi baby whom I could play with using this kind of training. Instead of the traditional sacking out ritual, where you do a kind of dance with the horse wanting to take off and you putting pressure on and then removing it right before the horse is about to leave until he or she finally decides the thing isn't scary after all, instead of that the horse picks the pace, decides to play with the monsters as he or she is comfortable, learns that approaching the monster is a choice that's rewarded with a click/treat. I could go so far with a baby long before I ever sat on his or her back. We'd be dancing on the seashore together with no tack in no time. We could audition for Cavalia or Odysseo! It would be great!
OK, back to reality. I have no idea what I'm doing, and both of us are just fumbling around trying to figure each other out. But it's fun.
In gratitude to Lexi. (And now back to those papers I have to read before Monday!)
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