Skinny Horse

*sigh of relief* I think that Nic is alright now. We discovered that he was coughing a bit, and now that that has stopped he has been eating WAY better and more alert and awake. We also got him alfalfa and he loves that, so now he's eating better. He did however lose a bunch of weight during this little phase of his, so now I'm trying to get weight back on him. I actually think that he has already put on a little weight within the past couple of days through the alfalfa and grain.

Today was the first day I played with him for awhile because of him being sickly, then weather, then there was Beauty and the Beast auditions (I'm assistant directing again), so finally got a chance to play with him today. I started with some friendly, then I did Day 1 of hill therapy. I actually didn't do the last five minute walking section because he was getting a little too into the circling thing. Every time I asked him to back up he thought it was time to circle, so I just said "No.. i think you'll just stand." and yo-yo'ed until he decided it was a better idea to stand, and within a couple seconds he was licking his lips. He seems to be a fairly fast thinker and not overly afraid of anything. I took the beach ball and let him smell it and then put it on his back, all while he was loose in his stall eating. Then I bounced it up and down, and it makes a lot of noise, but it didn't bother him a bit.

"Whoa..."

"There are no garden tools in my barn, the word is 'woah!' not 'hoe'! "

Lol.. so, that was the quote of the day on saturday when I was trying out another horse. 'twas funny, and I really liked the horse, and then she came down $1000 on the price to $2500, so we're thinking about him. I want to go ride him again and have larry look at him, and its nice because, for once, this horse is local!! yay. Back to the quote, I tend to say "ho" when I'm riding a horse that does voice commands, and rocket listens to Whoa, and when I finally got that through my brain he stopped really really nice.

I had a good session with Mr. Okie last night. I played with more sideways without a fence, because he still wants to leak forward especially on the off side. Played with a little circling, which wasn't that great because he kept coming in, but thats not that bad, considering what he used to do, lol. Then i hopped on and worked a lot on him stopping with just my body and the savvy string around his neck. also, on following my focus. With that I actually got a couple pretty good trot to halt tranistions basically bridleless (obviously still had the halter with reins, we're not ready to be naked, lol)