Pat got back from her conference this evening. Sounded like it was a really neat experience, and she met and talked to a lot of people. Now if only I was more outgoing/didn't freak out talking to strangers and I maybe would have had a similar experience at the SPARCS conference earlier this summer. Oh well...
Now that Pat's back, we're going to try something a little different with Greta. We're going to set up her training sessions so she doesn't have so much time to think about getting scared. Pat called it the "Click 'n Stick" method, where you mark the "happy face" and then offer an opportunity to earn a reward (such as presenting the guider ball so that the horse can touch it and get rewarded). Hopefully this helps Greta improve more quickly. She was already starting to make a break through today -- our last session of the day, her ears were mostly up or out to the side rather than pinned back. It's progress, no matter how modest.
Took Amigo around the yard today with me in the saddle and Heather leading. It started out OK and then everything kind of crumbled from there. Heather had accidentally been standing on a red ant hill, so suddenly she had red ants biting her foot. I slid off Amigo and held him while she ran to save herself from stinging bites. We then tried to walk Amigo through the yard with his gear on but no rider, but when we got to the front yard we were ambushed by swarms of mosquitoes. Got out of there quick... Poor Amigo. We'll have to do some restorative work in the next couple days to make sure this less than ideal session didn't mess him up too much.
On a happier note, little Bambi the super tame wild pony is now happily sticking her head into a halter and wearing it while eating hay from Heather's hand. Bambi's so cute...she's always so excited to see us and makes happy nickering noises when we're walking up.
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