Groundwork, Day 1

So, since both of my horses are fairly footsore from frozen rutted ground (Thank You to my mud yard from this loverly year of rain, rain, and more rain), I am keeping off their backs while their toesies feel a bit better. Sher has front shoes, so is slightly less lame, but Andi looks pretty sad all around. *Shrugs* Farrier says leave 'em off, we leave 'em off. Sorry dude. Toughen up those toes!

Anyway. Groundwork. Sher's been looking super stiff travelling to the right. On lunge, she pretty much counter bends completely, but I haven't decided if it's a matter of imbalance in her previous rider that she's now formed a habit or if she's truly that stiff. And Andi has some serious concavity along his right back and shoulder as compared to the left. So... We've got our work cut out for us with both of these monsters.

Sher went first. I worked on flexing at the neck first, then worked on pushing the hind end over, then moving the front end laterally. Then backing up, coming forward, and repeat in some order of that. With Sher, I mix in some small circle work because it's always good to reinforce that when I ask her to do something, she needs to do it when I ask.. not 5 minutes later. And she's also a bit more prone to forgive me if I mess up my timing, which was bound to happen because we haven't done this stuff in a bit. So..

Sher: Interestingly, not that stiff to the right. Carrot stretches very well. More stiff pushing off her right hind, which is to be expected with her known hock issues, but not significantly more stiff than pushing off her left, which she tends to try to walk forward out of instead of rotating around her left front as asked. Moving front end is always a little more difficult, but I think that may be my fault. I will continue to work on my technique.

Andi: Very stiff in his neck equally on both sides with carrot stretches. Very food motivated, though. Good motion laterally behind in both directions. Did not attempt moving the fore due to my technique issues. bah. Back up is... non existent. So, we worked on that with some success, and was able to move him back a couple steps by the end and call him forward. Very willing to try, but not as reactive as Sherwood. I need to remember to give him more time to process. We did not work on circles due to his sore feet.

So then we worked on some basic densensitizing stuff- Sher is very reactive to a windchime over her head, Andi was suspicious but did not move his feet. He was more reactive to the branches around his feet, but quickly adjusted. The rubber flaps on the barn door are... a problem. Andi less so than Sherwood, but Sherwood seemed to be okay with it after an hour of getting them to just walk through the flaps calmly. Appeared, I say, because the hay was still untouched in the AM even though their other bag was empty. *Rolls eyes* We'll keep working on it.