Maya 9/29/16

Wow a week where I actually got to work with Maya two days! Last night I decided to introduce her to the TARP dun dun duuuuun!

So we groomed, where she did not want to stand still. I also had cookies in my pocket which was a bad idea. She is very food obsessed and was far more interested in finding the cookies that I was obviously hiding from her than she was in anything else. So much so that when my cousin came out to the arena to talk to me for a minute and I removed her rope from her halter thinking she would take off bucking for freedom to search out the weeds that line the arena she instead stood by me snuffling and nudging me constantly. I finally led her over to the corner that had dry leaves and weeds for her to eat and she stayed over there nibbling for a bit. 

 So finally we got to the tarp, I did some circling and friendly games first of course but was really curious about how she would approach this new obstacle. It also gave me a chance to try the driving game by her side that I always had a rough time with previously. She did very well with that part of it. The tarp on the other hand was obviously a horse eating pit of doom. I even sprinkled the up till now hidden cookies as motivation. 

My goal was just for her to touch it with her nose. We'll move on to feet and such soon and I plan to add a big ball to our play soon too. But for this session it was overcoming the fear of the tarp just enough to touch it. So we did some driving game and some squeeze game. The first time she heard it crinkle she leaped back about 10ft and the startled at me even touching. She calmed down then and I did let her do a circle around it, then she bucked, cantered, fell all the way onto her side, leaped up, backed about 50ft, then looked at me completely confused as to why I was no longer holding her rope. I calmly approached her and picked up the rope gave her some love and a cookie then went back towards the tarp. 

So it took roughly 20 minutes, not actually that long of doing some driving then some squeeze game and we achieved eating cookies off of the tarp AND standing while I walked on the tarp or crinkled it by tapping it with my stick. 

I worry that she is too much horse for me and that she is so emotional and reactive. But I see progress in her every time we work together. I feel as if I am learning as much from her as she is from me and she is extremely affectionate as well as smart. I just have to keep playing with her and continue building trust between us. 

Maya 9/25/16

This mare continues to amaze me. She is so intelligent and catches onto things very quickly. Today I decided to put the saddle on her to see how she did. My initial plan was to actually mount her a few times and see how that went but my grandmother's boarders showed up to ride and I did not wish to continue working with my potentially sketchy mare while they were riding their gelding who is her main distraction. 

I worked with Maya on several of the games and worked on the circle game the longest. She likes to stop right be hind my back and come into me. She also seems to get more emotional as her speed increases. If she' trotting, she's more aware of things around her and more likely to spook and buck. 

I worked with her with the saddle pad for a bit, letting her sniff it, then patting her down with it. She is very curious and loves to sniff and chew on things. I need to work on my patience so that I can allow her the time and space to nibble away until she's comfortable.

I added the saddle and she spend a good deal of time leaning in and sniffing and nibbling at the girth area. No stirrups were on it, so nothing flapping around. I did a few yo-yo's and circles. Which she did fairly well with. I led her to the mounting block and put weight on her and jumped up and down a bit. Again, she seemed okay. Then it was time to put her up. Overall it was a successful session.

Maya 09/22/2016

One thing I've discovered abut Maya is she is ALWAYS in heat. Every time that I have taken her to the arena to work with her and she sees Skeeter an admittedly gorgeous quarter horse she has to stop and present herself and spray. Ewww...  This is almost as much of a distraction for her as her obsessive need to eat anything that she sees that even resembles vegetation including branches from the pecan tree and any misc leaves or weeds that happen to be in the arena or on the way to the arena. It's the first day of Autumn and it's been a dry summer with a CA drought not permitting extra watering so I get that she is really missing having grass to graze on. I hope that we will have enough rain this year to keep the fields green for a bit.

So I brought her out, no chase to get her caught, she seems to come to me eagerly now. Max blew through the gate after us... Must start locking the middle gate so he can't get past me, he's too smart for his own good. Surprisingly Maya didn't react much to a loose Max just rummaged around looking for grass to eat while Mathew caught Max and took him back to their shared pasture.

Standing still for grooming is an issue for Maya. She wants to be into everything, she moves around and looks at stuff and if I walk away she follows as far as she can. This is a little unnerving due to the potential for her to get her head bumped or caught on something. 

We fly sprayed with success. 

I was able to scratch inside both of her ears and apply flyspray to her right ear. Her left she is far more wary of though. So I will work on it. 

In the arena we worked on:

Friendly game with stick and string

Porcupine

Driving

Yo-yo

Circle

Skeeter got into the arena and decided to run around bucking and to my delight Maya startled just a tad but did not pull away or attempt to take off. Once again I called up Mathew to catch the naughty horse and get him out of the arena.

Once Skeeter was out I put the bareback pad onto Maya and proceeded to do friendly and circle games to see how she would do.

She was great. I did the friendly game extra long because she appears to allow me to do things without actually relaxing or accepting so it took a bit to get her to lick and chew.

Then I took her to the mounting block and practiced having her stand close to it with me on it. I messed with her, jumped up and down, put weight on her. All of this she took in stride, no craziness.

After I let her touch things and made various weird sounds to see if she would startle which she does but doesn't go crazy, just looks up and then if I do it enough calms down.

Progress is being made for sure.

Maya Day 4

Sept. 2nd 2016

I actually did work with her a little be the week before, but we didn't do a whole lot. Mostly just standing to be groomed. This past Friday though I had a day off from work and decided to spend at least an hour just working with Maya.
I did not start by grooming, I took her directly to the arena after getting her to move past the gelding that she is in love with. She still stops and presents to him, but it's taking less time for me to get her to focus back on me.
We played the friendly game first and she did great, I used the stick and string all over and she was fine. I used her rope on her back and legs and over her head and again she was fine.
Porcupine went well, she is very sensitive so I am learning how to apply just enough pressure and to release at the right time.
Driving game went well
Yo yo she begins to move at phase two but I still need to go to phase three sometimes and she is returning to me fairly easily.
Circling game we are working on her just walking around 3 times and then yielding hindquarters and coming in, which she is doing with minimal use of the stick.
Sideways I suck at and need to work on before I confuse the crap out of her. Part of it is no actual hard fence to use, just the soft tape of the arena. Will work on this.
Squeeze game worked with between me and fence line and over posts.
We also practiced figure eight with cones which she did very well at which surprised me. My sending cues did not seem to confuse her at all.
We worked on fly spray and I think that mostly she doesn't like it, but won't freak out if I take it slow and steady, this horse does not like things being done TO her but if I approach and show her the bottle, spray the air a few times and watch her reactions, she stands very well.
We ended with me practicing putting the bareback pad on her and rubbing her with it.
So far even though she's a little more spooky than I like, she has not acted at all like the crazy horse that Christine took out a month ago... I am hoping that as I build the relationship with her and play with her, that her and I will bond and she will become a great partner for me.