Transitions

Humans, horses, dogs we experience life at different paces but we all have transitions of some form with different levels of anxiety.

This past week has been full of them for both the Horse and I.

His past is starting to fade a bit, the fears that were once oh so clear in his mind are now taking a back seat and the level of improvement is fantastic. When we started his walk was horrible, short stepping, he wasn't tracking up and just plain meh. Now it's a beautiful four beat, you can feel him tracking up and ready for the next cue. His trot, once again was more or a short jog and nothing special, wasn't using his muscles to carry himself that well and then come to the canter. We're not blindly taking off with little to no steering or brakes. He still wants to rush into it but when you have him and carrying himself and you ask for a canter you can feel the penny drop. If you let him rush then the old habits start to reappear. With his time with me he has learnt that a) you don't get beatings around here for being scared b) if you make a mistake, no biggie we just go back and try again and c) Biscotti is the best damn tasting thing know to this horse, better then peppermints.

For first time in his life, he was clipped this week. A nice stylish blanket clip. With the work load he has been doing, this was needed. For a horse that had shown quite a lot of reserve to new and strange things, he blew my mind away. He stood there like this is what happens all the time. As the clippers got closer to his head I was starting think maybe we might have an issue. Nope stood there munched on my failed Christmas Biscotti with out a care in the world. Around the ears, nothing.  Another first for him was a neck blanket. He had a think about it and figured that regardless of what his reaction was, he'd be wearing it. The first time I blanketed him you could see him thinking "is there trolls in there? is it going to eat me? I'm sure it might kill me". Now when it's nice and I let him run around naked, when I come back to put his PJ's on, when I pick up the blanket, he talks to me.  Now in his mind blankets = awesome toasty warm.

This week has also seen the start of me now being a business. Cambridge Park Training Services. For me this scary due to the unknown. I have to start from the ground and work up again, I don't have the built reputation like I had in Australia. I can't just send out an email saying "hey, I've gone out on my own, this is my rate" and know that I will have at least 5 horses a month to work. So for now, the day job stays. The one thing I hope will set me apart from other Trainers that focus on starting young horses under saddle and re-training those with behavior issues is that I guarantee my work.

Things have also been ramped up for the Dr Andrew McLean Clinic. If you are still procrastinating I have 2 spots let to audit and 4 spots left for lessons. If you wait too long, you will miss out. As always, if you have any questions about the clinic please feel free to contact me and I'm more then happy to help.

I'm going to share a comment that made my day this week. I'm still smiling about it :D

"Sammy is a good looking horse, but due to size I didn't think he would move that well, more of a plod, but when we watch you ride him in the field, MAN he can really move. I didn't think a heavy horse could move like that!"