Thursday, November 3, 2011

Just stand still, won't you?

Yesterday's ride was not much of a ride, all about standing still and not going anywhere. We ended up going places, when he'd move off or I'd ask him to take a few steps and stop him again, sometimes he would want to move off again as soon as I had stopped his feet (especially going in the direction of grass) And I would shut him down with a one rein stop and flex him to both sides.

With his flexing from the riding, he's got more flex to the left, and makes it a point to touch my shin with his teeth, as if to say Yeah, lady, you're teaching me how to bend right around and nab you a good one. He did hit that spot on my shin that is still recovering from my big fall several months ago, felt like he had touched me with a fire brand. To the right, he is not as giving, and wants to fight it sometimes, and I have to lean forwards and hold my hand behind his elbow and tell him to touch my hand, sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't and he just goes around in circles and shakes his head and backs up and suchforth. He's better on the right than the left from the ground, however, which is interesting to note. He also likes to stay flexed after I've flexed him, an ok problem to have, as Clinton Anderson would say.

In the mean time, I'm considering changing his stall over to a no-bedding sort of deal. Even wood shavings are getting too dusty for the poor boy. I also tried a bale of hay from the stable, that none of the horses there seem to have a problem with, but even though it's not as dusty, so that I didn't hose it,after less than a full day of feeding it to him, his cough got about 5 times worse, to where he was coughing with no exercise, instead of after 45 minutes of work instead.

He also got his flu vaccine, which he took well. :)

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