Pistol - photos added 07/29/12

[Krista]

Another great day with Pistol.
She had quite a bit thrown at her today - but she hesitated at nothing!
I started the day with removing the bot eggs from her legs with a disposable razor. She stood quietly for the whole process, and continued to stand for grooming.
I had set up an "obstacle" course prior to catching her. Once she was groomed I proceeded to walk her through the course. She stepped over a rail, no problem, walked over the tarp, no problem, walked across the mattress, no problem, walked through the balls, no problem, let me bounce the huge ball over her and off her bum, no problem, went under the tarp completely, no problem, then back over the rail, no problem!

After all that I let her graze and gave her a portion of her grain.
Once she had a good break I took my training sticks - I have 3: (1) the flag (2) the carrot stick (3) the stick with the bag
I flicked her all over her body with all three, flicked them around her head and legs, made them all make noise, etc. The only one I got a little reaction from was the flag so that's the one I'll be focusing on!

Followed all this up with tacking her up! She stood for being saddled and I introduced the bridle and bit to her today as well. She took it all in stride and even figured out she could eat with the bit pretty much right away and couldn't be bothered by it.

Very proud of her ;D

I've cut her back to a training day once a week, so today was that day.
I'll still continue to catch her and groom her when I go out to grain her.

So when all this was done and she was untacked I gave her the remainder of her grain.

Dave came out to the barn then and rubbed her all over and he was the one to put her back in the pasture. He's fallen for her too and has claimed her as his horse! lol

Photos from the "obstacle" course:

Stepping over the rail


Going over the tarp


Going over the mattress (photo from a few days ago, couldn't snap one today)


Totally under the tarp


Eatting with her bridle and bit in


My two girls, Maya and Pistol, back out in pasture

[Krista]

My girl has had it easy as of lately. I've done all the usual stuff with her - leading, grooming, hoof work, fly spray, sacking her out with tarps and tack, etc. She's improving constantly in leaps and bounds, always amazing me!

One thing I have done new with her is I've taught her to jog in hand. Today is the second day I've worked with her on it and she's already doing it on cue!
She's such a smart filly

I also measured her today! She's grown a WHOPPING 2.1 hands since I brought her home in February!!! She's now 13 hands at the wither and just shy of 14 hands at the rump I may get some decent height out of this filly yet!!! haha

[maria]

She is actually such a sweet looking little filly! Very pretty girl!

[Krista]

Thanks She definately is a sweet girl, I'm not a mare/filly person but she's won me over!

Haven't updated in awhile so here it goes.
Been doing the usual stuff I've been doing all along - fly spraying, catching, leading, jogging in hand, sacking out with tarps, tack, flags, and of course grooming.
New things I've introduced are jogging in hand with tack just to get her used to the feel of things bouncing around. I've also round penned her (did a join up). She did amazing and caught on to direction changes and the "pointing" cue super fast! She now knows walk and jog by vocal commands as well in the round pen (our round pen is HUGE - 80 feet - so she's not doing little circles by any means and I'm only doing it maybe once a week with her)
She's learned even more patience while being tied - I had her tied for nearly 45 minutes yesterday while I groomed her and braided her mane and just fiddled around with her. She stood for the most part, got a little anxious until I corrected her and she stood quietly again.
Also introduced the trailer yesterday! She's been trailered a couple times already, all of which she's never loaded properly, she's been pulled in with a rope around her bum :/ Luckily because of our join up she respected me even more and pretty much walked right onto my trailer. She was unsure about picking her hind feet up into the trailer but I just waited her out for a few minutes and she was on ! I let her eat for a bit then attempted to back her off. She got a bit of a start from the step down and stepped back up into the trailer, I made her step down with one hind leg, then the other, then I reloaded her and let her eat again. After a few minutes of eating again I backed her off again, this time all the way as she wasn't near as unsure about stepping down. Then I reloaded her again and let her eat one more time. Since she did so good after only 2 times I backed her off, this time with hardly any hesitation and called it a day

She also had her hooves done since my last update. It was only her second time ever having a trim - both times under my care. She did super considering it was only her second time ! The only part she kicked up a little stink about was putting her hind leg forward onto the stand, but since I haven't worked with her up to this point on it - it was expected.
Since then I've been working with her with our farrier stand and she now keeps her hind legs forward without a fuss but gets impatient quickly with it so still got some improvements to make in that area.

Say it all the time but this little filly keeps impressing me more and more!