Hi Everyone:

 

Well Cat and I had our first round penning session yesterday.  Quite productive.  I have done round penning in the past with Frasier my TB gelding but was never actually shown the proper way to ask things and it is a little different doing it with a 2yo as compared to a 12yo which is what Frasier was when I did it with him.

 

Took Cat about 40 to 45 minutes to finally realize that if she did what we asked we would leave her alone.  Ahhhh the stamina of youth eh? lol  Anyways by the end of the session she was stopping and automatically turning towards us, she would turn on the forehand in whatever direction we walked in, followed us (well she was already following me around anyways), backed up when we slapped our hand on our leg, etc. 

 

I will say she was quite warm and sweaty as it was 27celcius here and she was bullheaded about succumbing to our wishes but being the good girl that she is she finally came around.   Her reward was a nice sponge bath afterwards and getting to go back out on the grass with her buddies.

 

She has fallen in love with Laurie's paint gelding Fred and he with her.  It is quite comical to watch actually.  Fred is in the fat farm right now so while I was just sitting and chatting with Laurie after the round penning session he called for Cat and she called back and then came trotting up to keep him company.  Hope she can deal with the fact that she will be leaving him probably the end of October to go to my coach's barn without too much stress.

 

We finally had to put her out with the other horses as she would not stop running the fenceline and was starting to drop weight already.  Five days of being in a seperate paddock to try and instill some independance into her but still being able to see the other horses just didn't work.  So we decided to worry about her weight first and hopefully when doing the round penning and not allowing her to worry about the other horses will make her calmer and more independant.

 

Wish me luck

 

Jackie