Playing with FlyAway

A few weeks ago, I started playing with FlyAway on a more consistant basis. The first day, I took her into the round pen and while brushing her, she began threatening to nip. I stayed out of range and kept on with what I was doing while trying to figure out if it was just certain spots that bothered her or the whole idea. She then started taking the lead rope in her mouth and chewing it, so I used it to ask her to back a bit. After a couple of times of this, she gave up the rope idea and started doing the yawning, mouthing thing my first mare, Jade, used to do when anxious. If a horse is going to show anxiety, I prefer this method of communication versus nipping, kicking or leaving! So I was pretty sure at this point that her objection to being groomed was more an emotional response than a physical one. We have done our two rides in the round pen, and riding is preceded by grooming, so I decided to associate the grooming with getting prepared to do something fun.


Fly doesn't have the greatest ground manners. She doesn't stop walking when you do and will pull to get grass, etc. I started working on this a bit before she had her injuries, but all training etc. was put on hold while she recovered. So I took her out on the driveway and we practised stopping when person stops, with her stopping the way I asked, placing a front foot down when I stopped and faced her and not bringing the other front any further than parallel to the first foot. She's very smart, and picked it up quite quickly. We quit for the day.

Next day we played with asking her to also give me her attention. She "leaves" by looking around a lot. Not in an excited way, just hmmm, think I'll look over here, oh, what's over THERE, I'm avoiding looking at YOU! So whenever she looked at me with both eyes and ears forward, I let her graze, using an eat and pointing to the ground cue. Didn't take too long for her to make the connection there either. Next was the kiss to cue her to stop eating and come with me. Not a problem. After this was solid, we stopped for the day.

Next day played with a new problem, I'm not so smart and couldn't figure out how come she ended up so close to me even though I started an arm's length away and she stopped when I did. I finally realized that she started walking forward as soon as I turned around and with her big stride, closed the distance between us quickly. If I kept walking, she would stay behind far enough, but if I stopped after a short distance, she was too close. So we then asked her to stay put until I took a step, then she came too. That has solved the problem and we also have been practising walking veeeerrrrryyyyy slowly. She's learned to stop walking to keep the distance when I'm babystepping, smart girl!

One day I decided to put her in the round pen to move her around a bit and see how she's going. She walks with no worry and asks to come join up quite quickly, but that's not what I was looking for that day. I asked her to trot and she immediately tenses up and trots with her head in the air. She looks MUCH better gait wise, just a slight hitch in front and I thought if I could get her to relax and lower her head, that may disappear. So I kept asking her to trot, change direction, trot. She bucked and kicked up her heels and cantered a couple of times, but still had the giraffe trot. Finally, she'd had enough and as she came around to the one strand "gate" of the round pen, sailed right over it! She has great form and cleared it by 3'! I pushed her too hard and feel bad about that, but that's how you learn. Next round pen work will be easy peasy no pressure sessions until she trusts me again.

I've noticed a big difference in her attitude and demeanor. She seems to be enjoying this so far (at least the leading lessons!) and I've had no anxiousness about grooming since the first day. We actually took our first walk in the woods with Macy and Angel yesterday and Fly did great. She blew softly a bit, but stayed with me and was steady. I love that about her. I flip the lead rope around when walking and she got tapped on the nose a couple of times when she got too close, but it didn't freak her out and she was staying where she should be by the end of the walk, even down the slippery hill. Macy had the great idea of bringing carrots in a lunch bag, she always comes prepared, even on a 10 minute trail ride, LOL! We had water for us and carrots for the horses, so Fly would "find" a carrot laying on the trail as we walked along.

Next step will be practising while Fly wears a saddle. I'm not in any hurry to ride her, I want her to be really ready emotionally and physically before we take that next step.