Putting in the work

 And getting a little bored... and despondant. Maybe that's not the right word... But, meh... not sure we're making progress... not sure I'm doing the right things... ugh.

I grabbed Lyric from the pasture and she seemed kind of excited to go to the arena. I mean... I do just keep feeding her for minimal work, so.., I get that. But yay! Before we went in, we walked over the two gound poles up the hill 6 times. She kept trying to go to the arena... but I did give her some treats too. So then we went in and did some pillar walks and then I pulled her blanket and put on the figure 8 polo wrap and we did the butt circles, the hula and the head wiggle. Although the head wiggle is hard because she kept trying to sneak into my fanny pack for treats. I did adjust her poll because she was very crooked and got some yawns so yay. So then we did our serpentine over ground poles and then over the raised poles. She's definitely much less coordinated over them than Dan. And she was really bad about knocking them over today. The raised ones. She also stepped on my heel again. So, I don't know if it's just still back tension or legit neuro.... 

I lunged her for 5 minutes each direction today. And while I jogged with her a little bit, I mostly put her out on the lunge. She actually did a hair better. She was almost tracking up and did speed up a bit when I really encouraged her. She's definitely not quite as sluggish although I still do have to keep after her to keep her going more than just a shuffle. I am trying to remember though that perhaps her tempo is her tempo. BUT... she also has to pick her feet up and can't just drag around. After we did the five minutes each way I gave her a quick break and then tried to get her to canter. And.. she did. BUT... it was a struggle. She did not go up into it easily and I basically had to chase her into it. Both directions. And she would only get about 6 strides with me smooching and chasing the entire time before she would fall out of it. It's so weird! We tried about 4 or 5 times and never got a full circle of canter. The good news is that she went down to a soft happy trot almost immediately after and didn't get all riled up so yay for that at least I guess.

We then trotted the alternating raised poles and she was good with that today. Oh, we also did our backing up whcih got a hair better! So... yeah, I don't know. I don't know if I'm doing the right things... if I need to be encouraging the canter more.. if I need to be waiting on the canter... it's just odd that she's better at the canter under saddle... So... I'll be praying for direction/discernment and see what happens. 

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