Melody Update

We've been thoroughly enjoying Melody!  She's such a sweet heart and takes every lesson in stride.  She's been doing so well with leading and picking up her feet that last night when we (hubby and I) were cleaning out her feet we were surprised when she wouldn't give her back feet.  Like at all.  As soon as she picked a back foot up she would lean all the way back and almost fall over!  She did this with both of her back feet.  Only once did she pick up her back foot nicely out of the multiple times trying.  And we couldn't duplicate it.  I thought maybe she was lacking confidence in her ability to stand with only three feet so we put her next to a fence where a pole was for extra support.  At first it worked but it quickly went back to her putting all of her weight on her back feet. 

Apparently the feet lessons need to be repeated.  This happens with young ones...testing out what they can and can't get away with.  Which, did I mention that she started biting again?  She got be good on my shoulder but I told her that was not acceptable in no uncertain terms.  She hasn't tried biting me since.  Anyways, back to her feet.  Because we weren't making any progress we thought maybe we would get her mind off it and give her a new lesson to think about - round penning.

When I first took her off the lead she immediately was more interested in her friends across the driveway.  There was no interest in moving...lol  I got bigger and more intense with my request for her to move out which she finally obliged while charging after the dog.  Dang dog...I didn't see him come in with me and I don't allow him in the round pen with me while working horses.  The horses usually try to run him down and I don't want him or me to get hurt in the process.  I got the dang dog out and got back to work.  She actually was getting the hang of it rather quickly.  Changing directions was a bit sticky but we got through it and called it a day.  She was perfectly calm and had no issues with me hooking her back up to the lead (Zoe always got nervous in her younger years, but she's quite a bit more high strung than Melody is).

Farrier is coming out tonight so we'll see how she does with her back feet...could be interesting!!

Until next time!



Quote for the day:
"We didn't lose the game, we just ran out of time."

-Vince Lombardi