Obstacle course

While I was at work, Kirstin set up an obstacle course using some of her dad's fence post(hope he doesn't need them anytime soon). She showed me what Tuff can do. She has him backing through this "L" and pivoting outside the small opening.


"Now you have to go this way."

He is swinging his hip a little bit too far, but this was only his first day to do this, so I am sure he will get better with practice. By the time Kirstin was done, Tuff was backing through without hardly any cueing. He gets a good boy scratching.

Next onto the small bridge. I think we will have to make this bigger, he just doesn't fit very well.

Almost all four on, but this is as close as he would get.

Over the weekend...

This past weekend, Tuff experienced some new firsts. First first was the picking of his hooves, he seemed to really enjoy this after he got used to the idea.

Another venture out of the safe zone. He did really well. Kirstin uses the flag stick to control his speed, if he tries to walk ahead of her, she just puts it up in front of him and he backs off, if he gets to close she waves close to his side and he backs away, etc.

Trailer was in a completely new place. We had used it the night before, so we just left it parked in front of our house, instead of next to the horse pen where it usually is. Tuff hesitated a little, but after a very short time, he followed Kirstin on. She backed him off and reloaded several different times.

On down the road we go. Kirstin rode on the trailer with Tuff while we traveled down our driveway. He did a pretty good job, he sat back once which kind of scared me, but not Kirstin.

Tuff got his first offical bath. In the past, Kirstin had just sprayed him off, but this time he got a full bath. He has some itchy spots, so Kirstin used a medicated shampoo on him. She just wanted to make sure she could rinse him completely before putting soap on him. He did great, and looks nice & shiny now. Still has some of the winter coat, wished we had clippers would try to clip him if we did.

Tuff is really starting to figure this lungeing thing out. He is starting to understand that Kirstin is the one who sets the speed and that if he just listens to her, he has to do a lot less work. His head carriage is beautiful.

It's been a couple of weeks since Kirstin has tried loading Tuff. No problem, he follows right on behind her.

Tuff gets tied for just a few minutes. He wasn't too sure about being tied in the trailer, but Kirstin goes in to reassure him that he is alright.

Kirstin takes Tuff outside the pen and leads him around. He did alright, something new so he was a little bit on the anxious side, but he calmed down.

Because of the intense heat, Kirstin has to train pretty late so the picure is kind of dark, but you can see just how relaxed Tuff is on his outing.

Kirstin, TAZ & Tuff

TAZ has been banned back to his smaller pen until his hoof heals completely. Last week when we had about 20 drops of rain, TAZ thought he was suppose to run around and cut up. He was running all around, straight up to the fence line and then doing a sliding stop, spin around and go to the opposite side and do the same. It was really neat to watch, but when we saw him pick up his hoof, we knew he did something to re-injure the cut that was healing. Sure enough, we go out there and he had punctured the healing wound, so now he is back in the smaller pen where he can't get so worked up. But now everytime Kirstin goes out there to train Tuff, TAZ looks at her as if to say "hey what about me???" So while Tuff was practicing being tied and learning some patience, she jumped on TAZ's back just a halter, no reins and off they go. Kirstin hasn't ridden TAZ very much since the initial injury, but TAZ is his usual self-perfect. He turns when asked, stops when asked. TAZ will never cease to amaze us. We were the luckiest people on earth the day we adopted him, he has been the perfect partner for Kirstin. Now on to Tuff....

Curious little boy that he is, Tuff starts to play with TAZ's feed pan.

Kirstin working on stops with Tuff. By the time she was finished, he was stopping when ever she stopped.
Tuff does something new-trotting at a lead. First time around he got a little excited and started kicking up his heels. So Kirstin asked 1 more time for a trot, and he did pretty good. She stopped him just before he thought about kicking up his heels again. A good note to stop the evening on.

What happens when you have a bored teenager & a very compliant yearling?

Tuff is working on ground tieing. He stood perfectly still while Kirstin went outside the pen to get a feed pan. She returned with the feed bucket so that she could do this:

She just wanted to see what Tuff would do if she put pressure on his back. He didn't seem to mind having her lean across his back.

Until she dangled her arms on the other side of him, then he took one small step.

Next she decided that she would try crawling underneath him. Even when her back rubbed up against his belly, he didn't budge.

Click on the picture and look at the smile on Kirstin's face. She was soooo excited that she was able to do this. She actually went underneath Tuff 4 different times-2 times on each side.

Sweet, sweet Tuff!

What a sweet little guy Tuff is. He won't be ready for a rider for quite a long time, but if this is any indication, he won't have any problem accepting a saddle or rider.

6/29/09 day 16

At the start of every training session, Kirstin reviews what Tuff has learned. He is getting really good about standing still to have his hooves pickedup. Kirstin is holding his hooves up for longer periods of time and has started pounding on them to get him used to having work done on them.

She has also started lungeing Tuff on a lunge line. Tuff has mastered directional changes, stopping and facing up to Kirstin when she asks for a stop. He is even starting to recognize verbal cues. He did show his yearling side a couple of times when he decided he wanted to lope and kick up his heels. Kirstin just simply kept him going at a lope until she decided he needed to slow down. By the time they were through, Tuff decided that Kirstin should decide his speed and not him because he had to work harder when he chose the speed.

Tuff's not too sure about this. Look at the expression-the curve of his neck, the ears pointing straight at her boots, but he stood still even though he wasn't sure what was going on. What the heck is she doing? Kirstin had gotten dirt in her boots and had to clean them out.

After their training session, Kirstin decides that it is time to get Tuff used to water. This is the first time that Tuff has shown any kind of disagreement with what Kirstin has asked of him. He just isn't too sure about the wet stuff coming out of the green thing.

By the time they were through, Tuff decided that the green thing wasn't going to hurt him and that the wet stuff actually felt really good considering the past 2 weeks have been 100+ degrees.