Adventuring!!!!

 What a good girl today! I took Dan and Funny to Ashland earlier today and after we got home and had lunch I went out to work with Lyric. It was such a beautiful day too. Our last day of False Fall I think. Doh! Anyways, we went into the round pen and worked on our stuff. We did pillar 1 at the halt and just stood in it for a bit. I even got some snuggles and a few licks and chews. Still no big yawns yet. We did some pillar 2 and then progressed to walking out of pillar 1 and 2. Then we did a tiny bit of trotting in hand. She was much better at it today and while she wasn't relaxed and jello in her brachiocephalic, she was much calmer and starting to think about relaxing. She wasn't braced, but not fully let go. I did get a few steps of her lowering her head and letting go, so yay! Progress! Then we worked on yielding to pressure to bring her head to her side. She's still tough because she almost responds to zero pressure but then when you do use pressure, she just braces. So I can't quite figure out how to get a better relationship to contact... I am using a target when she starts locking and then, even though she's technically responding to the target, I still release pressure and praise, so maybe she'll put the two together. But she got the hang of the sideways bend and then we practiced yielding the barrel again. She yields the right barrel much better than the left barrel, but we got some good progress. We went back to pillar work and got some good pectoral motion and some good releasing and quit with that. 

Then, since Mike was gone and I had time... I went and grabbed Dan and put his bridle on and hopped on bareback and grabbed Lyric. We ponied around the pasture and she did great! We even trotted twice. She trots better with him than with me. Ha ha. Well, she goes into the trot quicker. But she was probably still a little braced. It's hard to tell because she was fairly far behind me and I was bareback. But I did get a soft lead most of the time, just maybe not quite the jello neck I want. But fair enough... she still doesn't trust it yet. She's getting there though. We even walked over two logs. 

 

Then I thought... why not?! So I hopped off and pulled her and Dan through the gate and hopped back on at the trailer and off we went. We were going to walk to the lake and back, but we ended up going to the tennis court and back. We passed a neighbor on his bicycle (three times actually!) and she didn't mind him. A car came up behind us and she didn't mind that. There was a girl sitting on the swing at the park and we said hi and she didn't mind that. However, when we turned around and headed back past the lake, she got a little wild. I don't know if she realized she was heading home... or she just over her shellshock or... what! But she got almost jiggy and kept bumping into us. But she wasn't stupid and responding nicely to the lead rope pressure and didn't escalate. I did see a sparkle in her eye though, which.... is kind of nice. I don't want crazy, but I do like a little spice! I briefly thought about walking into the "park" and letting them sniff the water but she was jazzed up enough and I didn't want to push my luck. Or have her stress poop at the park. So we headed home. Once we got past the lake she settled back down again and was flat footed by the time we crossed the road back to the house. GOOD GIRL!!

I'm so tempted to take her to Ashland tomorrow and introduce her to the bridges and water and see what she does. I may end up doing it. :) Why not!? No time like the present! I guess it'll depend on what Mike and I end up doing.