I’ve been out of commission for five weeks. \u00a0For the first few of those weeks, I could barely make it out to the barn. \u00a0Horses did fine. \u00a0They have plenty of grass and water.<\/p>\n
Lucky has had five weeks of being Mr. Dominant Boss of the world. \u00a0“I’ll move when I want. \u00a0I am boss of the world, sun, moon and solar system.”<\/p>\n
Today, I’ve been declared officially well. \u00a0My first day to ride. \u00a0Lucky and me. \u00a0Lucky having a tough time doing three correct hind quarter turns. \u00a0That’s one test of a horse that is ready to ride and their respect of you. \u00a0Can they move their hindquarters three full steps with back legs crossing. \u00a0Crossing those legs under is a sign of respect. \u00a0One cross under, two cross under and a no cross under. \u00a0Start over…start over etc. \u00a0It took a wee bit of time before I got that respect.<\/p>\n
Lucky faces me and looks away. \u00a0A sign of disrespect. \u00a0Look away from me…I ask him to move his hindquarters three times in a row crossing his legs. \u00a0Finally, he looks at me and I’m able to rub his head, his ears and tell him what a great horse he it. \u00a0He knows I’m the boss…at least for a few minutes.<\/p>\n
Lucky circles at a trot and looks outside the circle instead of at me. \u00a0It’s called disrespect. \u00a0We do some hindquarter yields while he is trotting and finally he manages to look at me most of the time. I ask him up into a canter and Lucky goes into his fake little bucking horse imitation. \u00a0We change directions when he goes into his tantrum. \u00a0He pulls away from me three separate times. \u00a0I chase him around the yard until he comes back to me… except when he ran and hid in the barn.<\/p>\n
Five weeks without me being the dominant partner. \u00a0I am weak but still alive enough to get on a horse ready to ride.<\/p>\n
Finally, I put on his bridle, walk to the trailer and climb on. \u00a0We argued for a while about mouthing the bit or paying attention to the reins. \u00a0Bending, Bending Bending. \u00a0I remember John Lyons three day clinic and his quest for the participants to complete 1500 miniature “gives”. \u00a0Lucky needs 1500 miniature \u00a0gives. \u00a0Sadly, neither of us could live through that. \u00a0Way way too boring.<\/p>\n
We went to the bushy apple tree and walked around it…at a leg yield. \u00a0We argued about most everything. \u00a0Finally, we were able to walk around the apple tree doing a fair leg yield without arguing. \u00a0I rode back to the trailer and got off. \u00a0I was too exhausted after taking off the saddle and bridle to put his halter on.<\/p>\n
I tried to lead him by his lower lip, but he balked at that. \u00a0Then I just put my hand under his chin and led him to the barn. \u00a0I led him at liberty crossing this stuff called grass. \u00a0He came right along with me. \u00a0I fell in love with him all over again.<\/p>\n
He got fed grain in the barn. \u00a0Tomorrow is another day. \u00a0It’s night now and I”m still alive. \u00a0I’ll have a little more strength tomorrow.<\/p>\n
I had a blinding flash of the obvious! \u00a0Ground Work with Lucky is all about getting his respect…RESPECT!<\/p>\n
I don’t know if I can make it thru three full clinic days of getting his RESPECT.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I’ve been out of commission for five weeks. \u00a0For the first few of those weeks, I could barely make it out to the barn. \u00a0Horses did fine. \u00a0They have plenty of grass and water. Lucky has had five weeks of being Mr. Dominant Boss of the world. \u00a0“I’ll move when I want. \u00a0I am boss of the world, sun, moon and solar system.” Today, I’ve been declared officially well. \u00a0My first day to ride. \u00a0Lucky and me. \u00a0Lucky having a tough time doing three correct hind quarter turns. \u00a0That’s one…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[89,125],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2779","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-country-franks-lucky-star","category-missouri-fox-trotter"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2779","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2779"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2779\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2782,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2779\/revisions\/2782"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2779"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2779"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2779"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}