I have been thinking a lot this week how time flies because Freedom turns 1 year old on Thursday. A year ago I was anticipating his arrival. I was wondering if Daisy was going to have a boy or a girl, what he/she would look like, and just really wondering when he or she would finally arrive. I am really excited to see what this next year holds with him because he is going to be *hopefully* be learing a lot of new and exciting things. So far what he knows is laying down (haven't worked on it for a bit but he does know the basics), he has had a bit in his mouth 3 times so far, and one time has had the harness on just to get it adjusted for him. Well tonight we took it a step farther....I put the harness on Freedom tonight and line drove him. He did really well. I hooked the reins to his halter because I figured that would be the best for the first time. We walked out the barn, and headed up the driveway toward the road. Halfway up, I turned him around and we walked back toward the barn. Once in the main part of the driveway I got him to do some circles and turns and he did really amazing. I kept the lesson short but I really praised him for doing so well. I was so pleased how he did for the first time around ;) I want to check into line driving some more and see what areas I can improve on so I can teach him better.
My goal with teaching him this awhile is just to give him some basic training and this should lead me up till the point that I can start putting a saddle on him and such. That won't be for a while yet but I am looking forward to that :)
After I put Freedom away I got Daisy out, groomed her, and saddled her up with the English saddle. I switched back to the snaffle bit because she just seems to do the best with that one out of the different ones I have tried. I didn't go for a ride, I just worked her out front in the yard. My goal with her was to get her to back nicely, stop right on command and not to do anything more than what she is told at the moment. Meaning if she is told to walk, she is not to do more than that till I tell her the next step. She did really well with everything I asked of her. I asked her to back and she responded the best she has ever in a bit. We still have to work on the slowing down from a trot to a walk and improve that but with everything else she did great. I would ask her to stop and she stopped pretty much immediately. That was way better than before. I want to continue fine tuning that but for tonight I was very pleased. She has definitely improved :) I plan to just continue working her on these very basic things this summer and am hoping that by fall we will be able to see great improvement. Once we were finished I brushed her and put her out in the meadow again. I am not sure if I will get to ride tomorrow but I would really like to.
Tulips
Here is a link to a book that I recommend as well as a blog that I found last week that has good info :) http://justabitofinspiration.blogspot.com/2013/04/doing-hard-things-sexual-godliness-and.html. Enjoy!
