Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Last couple of days



hmmmm - quite a lot has happened and I have not had a chance to blog....

Monday Garbo and Maraschino had their feet trimmed by Jools and Coco came and stood in the wash bay and afterwards sniffed Jool's tools. She told him that one day soon she would be doing his feet too. He loves the homemade treats I make and he follows me everywhere very closely in the hopes of getting one.

Well - I have a ride booked at Waimarie Estate on Friday at 11am so I have been working on taking Garbo away from Maraschino everyday.

Yesterday - I let Maraschino into the hay shed paddock which has my float in it and a view of the driveway and the end of the private road that leads to our place. Well - next to this paddock (it's only a small taped of area) are the neighbours goats across the fence. Maraschino stares at them at the best of times. But yesterday they were really up close and more personal that ever.

The goats were actually quite funny and would come up to the fence and stand up on their back legs to look at Maraschino (leaning the front legs on the wire fence). Well first he started doing laps of my float bucking, I brought Garbo back in case it was that we were a distance away. He stopped briefly but looking back I think it was just distraction initially. Then he actually approached the goats and got about 6ft away in between bucking laps of my float which includes a pile of topsoil! He just stared at them and then off he went again - bucking and doing laps.

I brought Garbo back and he didn't stop so I took Garbo back into the yard, and then got Maraschino's halter. He stood still long enough for me to halter him amazingly and seemed almost relieved!

Then I took him back to the wash bay for some serious Parelli sessions. We worked on tossing the rope over his head from the front and from the side. Boy did he lick and chew alot after that. Then we did some disengaging the HQ when you take the lead rope over the far side and around their hind end and back to their head and then apply pressure to see if they can figure out they need to turn away from you to turn towards the pressure and not pull away.

After about 10 minutes he was very yawny and blinky and sleepy looking so I put him in his yard (interestingly enough Coco just stood in the wash bay with all the rope tossing)... and I took Garbo out again. I kept leaving Garbo grazing and coming back around the corner to see how Maraschino was and he just stood there looking.

I took Garbo right up the road in the end and met my sister and her three boys coming down the road in the car. Garbo promptly put his head in the back seat window and took Matthew's (8) biscuit. We jogged back while they followed us down and after a brief demo of Parelli (Garbo was showing off and posing for photos) he took two of the boys for a quick bareback ride round the washbay.

Today - I backed the float up and decided to not put Maraschino in the hay shed/goat paddock and leave him where he was. I thought it best to practise our loading since Garbo had bonked his head on Janes float last time we loaded as he 'self-unloaded in a hurry'. He was fine - went in first pop and found his treats up the front with me on the side of the ramp - yay. We even did it again.

Then - we squeezed through a really narrow gap between the float and the fence to get some grazing in and some visual seperation from Maraschino. He was fine again so I think with one more go tomorrow and some food when I leave I can stop worrying now.

Yay - really looking forward to getting out to an arena on Friday and doing some patterns and online stuff as well as riding, and also there are some nice hacks there too. I'll take my camera.

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