More Progress

 Today was fun! Meg came out to help me with Lyric and Dan. We did Dan first and they had all gone back to the barn when we got back. So Lyric did NOT want to leave them at all. She would walk a few steps and then stop. I had asked her to move with pressure on the lead rope so I didn't ask harder, but kept up the pressure. Meg pointed out that now she was braced and would not be able to walk forward in pillar 1, so perhaps I should go back to her shoulder and ask her to soften and then ask her to walk forward by flicking the lead rope at her. (Okay... I would have done that with my whip but you have it! Ha ha). But good point. So we did that. And we got about 6 steps and then she stopped. We rewarded with treats but eventually Meg decided to just stop and work on her where we were. Good point... she's already tense and nervous... asking her to keep going is just trigger stacking. So instead we asked her to soften and walk and then turned her back towards them as a reward. 

Then Meg did some massage and nerve release on her in the pasture. Lyric loved it. She was all happy. By the time she was done, Dan and the others had wandered up and she was much happier to go into the arena to work. Dan was a saint and stood by the gate the first half. After that she didn't really care as they stayed close enough and Funny came over to take Dan's spot. Meg pretty much worked with Lyric the whole time getting her to go into pillar 1 and walk and stretch that neck out. She did good. She was getting a pretty good jello neck! I think some of it is that her feet felt better, some of it was the releases Meg had done, and maybe some of it was just timing? I'd like to think I wasn't getting as good of results because of her feet, but... maybe it's just cause I'm not asking right. But she got a nice forward marching walk and she was even over stepping a bit! Yay!

So then Meg showed me how she introduces lunging. It's soooo cool! She basically uses the whip to guide their shoulders away, but not in a whippy fashion, more of a stroking fashion. Almost like she was petting her with it. And she starts by walking away from them, but facing them, so she draws them in. Then she starts to wave the whip and move their shoulders. Then she does like a figure 8 thing where she crosses in front of them and gets them to change direction. It was pretty cool. And by waving the whip a tiny bit, Lyrics walk got bigger and more forward. It was neat! I did it too at the very end and she was good for me too! And she relaxed and went into pillar 1 on her own. NEAT! 

We decided that was enough as Lyric was starting to fatigue. We got some photos because he butt looked so much softer and not as "creased". And she was longer in her neck too! And not nearly as camped under in her hind end. Seriously, even in just 3 days, the change was impressive. YAY!

So excited for more tools in the tool box. And now I just have to decide... do I still ride her on Thursday? She's probably still not quite ready to carry a rider, but I was so excited about it and Kelli is coming. So I figure I may just do one short ride just to do it and then give her another week of pillar work before I get on again. We'll see. I may get rained out, but now it's looking less likely that it will rain Thursday. 

So proud of her!