Slacking

I'm slacking on updates lately. No photos from last week either. Tricia couldn't make it out and it was hotter than hot so we decided against any riding. And since we didn't have her truck to hook up to the trailer we couldn't work on trailer loading. Though in hindsight I wish I would have worked on just standing next to the trailer calmly with Cody. That would have a been a good lesson.

In any case we just gave everyone a bath. Kiko and Kalani's first bath in a long time. Kiko even got shampooed. Everyone else just got a nice hosing down. Axel enjoyed himself quite a bit. He was all crusty from dried sweat so it must have felt good to get that cleaned off. Of course the first thing all the horses did was roll. But at least they got their shower on a hot day.

It's too hot!

It was just too hot to work last night. We weighed the options of swimming, just riding, giving the horses baths, or working on trailer loading. We decided the trailer loading was our most needed lesson. Kiko was a champ, Kalani was a champ, Cody ... not so much. I got his front feet in no problem nearly every time. I got his whole body in once. After that he wanted nothing to do with it. I did some lunging and tried again. He still refused. Tricia did some lunging because he kept plowing people over, then she tried loading him. Finally after a long time of waiting and asking and waiting and asking, I got to the side of him and tapped him in the butt with a carrot stick (natural horsemanship tool like a whip but not). If he moved forward, I'd stop tapping. If he backed out, I'd tap. Nothing even close to painful, just annoying ... tap, tap, tap. Sure he was probably bored by now and just gave in. But he stayed calm and jumped right up into the trailer. We tested the process several times and each time he got in easier. So the tapping has won. We're going to try again next week instead of waiting so long between lessons.

We have a plan for the week after next, Tricia will bring Olly down and we'll load up two of our horses (probably Cody and Kiko) and make a dry run down at the state trail. Maybe we'll try Kalani the week after. I'm not sure what Cody's deal is with the trailer loading. Especially since he'll load once like a champ but then freak out in subsequent loading tries. He definitely needs a confident leader and it takes a lot of patience to gain his trust. I thought just maybe the trailer loading issue would go away now that his back seems to be feeling better, but I guess those were a little to high of hopes. Oh well, we'll work our way through it.

Next trailer lesson: getting Axel to back out, yikes!

Sticky Horses

It's been a while since I've been out to see the horses. No lesson this week, Tricia was away. So Steph and I went down the road with Kalani and Axel. Kiko's hooves are split so she won't be going on the road until we get her shod. Axel was his usual lazy slow self and Kalani wasn't much better. Well I stand corrected, Kalani isn't slow. He's sticky. He stops and will not go. When he does go he can really move out nicely but when he gets stuck it's for good. Steph finally added spurs and a crop to her person but I think he pretty much ignored the spurs. She was a little freaked out on what his reaction would be to the crop especially since we were on the road so she skipped trying that out.

It was super windy but Kalani did pretty well with that. I like riding in the wind, especially Axel. Since he goes so slow, the wind makes me feel like we're going really fast! Our future plans include some trailer loading and unloading lessons, a trip or two down to the state trail for some trial trail riding, and of course the We Can Ride trail ride fund raiser. All that and a wedding of course!