Slow and Steady

I wasn't able to go pick up my mustang, I was working in Denver on the pick up days. I sent a good friend of mine down to do it. This is where I got lucky, and God had a huge hand in it. They jumped me in a big bay horse, where I would have more than likely gotten in the truck and drove off my friend Serenity stepped out and took a good look at him. She noticed that he had an infected cut on his cheek that had some swelling. She brought it up to the folks there and they decided to give me another one. That is when Sham was run in, a cute little roan horse. He had to sit for a couple of days until i was able to start work with him on Monday morning. All I wanted to do was get him used to me on the first day. He is very skittish and uncertain, so taking my time was and is a huge priority. On the first day I simply put passive pressure on him and moved him around when he tried to leave and go away from me. Every time he looked at me I would over exaggerate taking the pressure away. Soon he was facing me consistently, even taking a couple of steps toward me. That is all that happened on the first day. On the next day I started approach and retreat in the morning after a while he let me get close enough to sniff and lip my hand, It was important to me that he took that first step. I didn't want to rope him. That evening we got the camera out and after a short amount of time he let me touch him, he had to make the first move to let me know that it would be ok. I pet him for a couple minutes then left him before he decided to leave me. The following morning I worked my way up to clipping the lead rope on. Once I got it, I put some pressure on his hind quarters, I was only after him following me with his nose, he tried to pull away a couple times. I simple held the pressure and the very instant he turned his nose toward me, released the pressure on the lead rope. I eased up to touching him everywhere I could within reason, (without exposing my self to getting kicked) and he handled it all fairly well. He was very weary but I have been able see him slowly letting down. One of the biggest feats of the week was fixing the halter. I didn't quite like the was the halter was tied and it was very loose. I started fixing it and he definitely didn't like the noise and my hands by his ears. It took a lot of working up to get it the way that I wanted it. He is now leading around his pen pretty fair, and is letting me catch him rather quickly. I don't want to take off the halter yet, but we will work up to that, in no time. He is showing me great signs of intelligence, and showing that he wants to trust me. I don't want to do anything to betray his trust like pushing him too hard, and too fast. I know more about what to expect at the show so I am taking a much different approach this year. I am not going to read up on too many other horses in the competition because I want to work my horse one day at a time at our pace. Last year I saw that others where doing things that I thought I should be doing and that distracted me. I hope to be able to get him to the round pen in the next couple days and then a lot more should start happening. I hope to have a lot more to report next week. Until next time, God Bless, BW