Yesterday – Cisco and I are now stuck together. I take off the halter and run around the arena and he stays with me. I turn. I stop. I back up. I turn and run the other way. His head stays right even with my body or he runs to catch up. That’s how good we are doing while we are playing in the arena. Alone in the arena.
So, there are other people in the arena yesterday. I decide it is time to do a little Susan and Cisco show off. Riding is done. I take off his saddle and his bridle. I do not put on his halter. This is it, “show off time!” He follows me. He is too close to me when we stop. I tell him to back up with my really cool hand signals. He ignores me. The carrot stick tells him to back up. He ignores it. Inside, I’m screaming at him. Cisco!
Then he looks at the two women in the arena over in the corner. He walks over to them. What! Cisco! I’m using my body signal, come join back up with me, Cisco. I am ignored. Cisco panders to the two women. Good Lordy. I have to go over and put a rope around his neck to lead him away. I’m been humiliated. Erin Patterson and Susan Breau….Cisco wants you to pet him. Sigh…
Today, our riding session is done. I leave him in arena and clean up his stall. He has been in there all last night and day. There is smell. I put new shavings in and dig out that smelly stuff. I clean his water bucket. I put up his hay bag. Then as I’m dragging 1000 pounds of manure thru the other barn aisle, the news of his treachery was shared. Cisco opened the sliding barn door, pushed the little table out of the way and gained entry to a barn aisle that has a tub of grain…tub has a cover. But Cisco also loosed the cover on th grain and started having his own grain festival. He was caught in the act. Good Lordy. I don’t think his grain festival was long enough to cause damage. Only humiliation of his owner. Good Lordy.
On the positive side… I played with Cisco at Liberty today. We were trotting along, side by side. I ran besides the barrels and Cisco jumped the barrels…at Liberty. I’m so proud of him. He jumped the barrels going both ways. Oh Yes!
I’ve been riding him pretend bridleless. I had the bridle on him and pretended it wasn’t there. But there is a big big difference when you really take off the bridle and really ride bridleless. We did that today! I rode bridleless. What do you get when you ride bridleless? You get the truth. Cisco isn’t perfectly tuned into my legs aid signals yet. The carrot stick did a lot of steering today.
Cisco and I have started playing the 4 corner game and the point to point game!
We are coming along, improvement and humiliation! It doesn’t get any better than this journey!