Another Catching BFO... and Some Liberty Play!

Originally posted 8 February 2006...


Hi all, just want to share a great day at the barn.

I was glad to finally have a good day because the last few trips up have been *bad*. The problem had been that Cloud wouldn't "catch" me. Anyway, the past few times have been bad.

Today, though, I made sure I had a plan. Quite simply, my plan was *not* to halter him out in the field where his buddies were because he's been having trouble haltering. Instead, I was going to make my 22' line into a loop and loop it around his neck. That way, I'd have control, but I wouldn't have to halter him. I also wanted to make sure that I had plenty of time and didn't need to feel "rushed".

Anyway, I went out to pasture. As expected, Cloud wouldn't let me touch him. So I didn't. Instead, I started playing with the other horses (don't tell their owners). Also as expected, Cloud was jealous. But he still wouldn't pay attention to me or let me near him. Hmmm; how interesting.

But then it hit me - my BFO: When I go out, I make the other horses get out of my way, but I pamper Cloud. No wonder he's acting like Alpha! (duh...)

So I started 'making my presence known' and wouldn't ya know...he started paying attention. Suddenly, he had to keep track of where I was or else risk getting "bitten" by my Carrot Stick. I was Alpha again! *YAY!* He still wasn't coming, so I tried a couple of "arrows" and finally found the right one - he came! And was totally Left Brain! YAY!!

So we made our way into the arena and worked on haltering. That went well and he was really paying attention to me. I wanted to work on the "Catching Game" so that he'd come to me better - so I let him loose in the arena. (fortunately, we were the only ones there) We played a lot at Liberty. At first, he didn't want to come to me, but he soon realized that it would be better to stick with me than to be all by himself in the big scary arena. So the Catching Game was a success. YAY!!

Then I wanted to get creative with the games at Liberty - so I brought in a couple of barrels. I wanted him to go from one barrel to the next, stopping at each one. It's a lot harder than I thought because we were playing with no ropes or lines or anything - just me an him. (Basically, I had no control over where he went). But we sort of did it. At one point, he broke loose and went to the other side of the arena. *GREAT!*, I thought - now we can practice the Catching Game again.

It didn't take long before Cloud started to CANTER in my direction! (AHHHHHH!!!!) That was a bit unnerving at first - a 1/2 ton animal barreling down on you... But I used my blocks and came out unscathed.

From there, things only got better. It was like on the videos - playing Stick-To-Me and sending to barrels and just hanging out! I was so impressed. We had a bit of time, so I also wanted to figure out how much work he's going to need before I can ride again. He's really unconfident with the whole process, so we're starting over. The problem now is that we don't have a saddle - and won't for the next couple of weeks. Today I started working on mounting bareback. A bit difficult, but still good. We made good progress and ended on a good note.

I was so happy to have made this kind of progress in only a day, but that's the beauty of this program. If only I could get up to the barn more often...but that's OK, we'll manage. I'm putting my L1 assessment on hold for a while. I had wanted to tape pretty soon, but things keep going wrong. So I'm going to fix our relationship first and then try to assess. The thing to do now is to move forward and not stay stuck in L1. Anyway, that's what we did today. I was so happy that I just had to share.