Well, we did a little work and played a little yesterday. All in all, no major progress but baby steps are what it's all about.
I think, at this point, I'm my own worst enemy. I'm learning so much but I'm not learning fast enough to stay ahead of P.
On a different note, vet comes out Monday, wormer's in the mail and, the farrier showed up yesterday... before I got paid and then acted flakey about coming out next week.
Everyone tells me that this is THE GUY but I'm not too pleased about having to chase the guy down and then, on top of it all, he won't just buckle down and give me a date/time that he can come out. That's pretty annoying.
We tried to work on disengaging hindquarters yesterday but I can tell that something isn't going right. It's either a respect/trust thing or I'm not cuing correctly because P is not responding well to it at all. I'd gather that the problem is ME and not Phoenix. Boo! During my drive home every day, I do a sort of mental review of the things P and I did that day and try to figure through what went well, what I did correctly and what I did incorrectly which produced poor results and the only thing I knew for a certainty yesterday was that I'm probably not letting off the pressure for long enough when he DOES disengage. But, how long is long enough? Gonna work at it again today and give a much more substantial release. Hopefully that will help.
On the other hand, it took me all of 2 tries to get him to lower his head. Yay! He really is a smart little guy and he picks things up very quickly when I cue him correctly.
I'm battling with uncertainty every step of the way here. The thing is, I don't know how much, exactly, P had learned however many years ago. I've been told that he was almost ready to ride with his previous person and that could explain why he picks things up so quickly... maybe I'm not teaching; maybe I'm just reminding him. But, if that's the case, he should already know how to disengage both front and hindquarters and he absolutely does NOT.
I'd think too, that if he were ready for a saddle, he'd have been less scared of the training whip and he was not. First time I brought that thing out, he flipped shit. Then again, maybe he was familiar with the thing... Maybe he former person used it not as a tool for training but as a punishment? I have no idea. There could be a thousand plus reasons why he's so quick with some things and an absolute freakazoid with others.
In then end, it doesn't matter. We'll just keep taking baby steps. Something else just occurred to me: P doesn't seem to get the idea of the imaginary circle thing (this is all Clinton Anderson style training). So, maybe today, we'll go over the little things we're doing well but we'll start again with the circle. He (C.A.) mentions repeatedly how important it is.
The coolest thing from the past couple days has been the Join-up. I read about the whole concept in a Joe Camp book and decided to try it (I think it's a Parelli technique but I'm not sure). Instead of me approaching Phoenix when I get to the ranch and him not being quite sure he's OK with my pesty self, here's what I've been doing for the past 2 days:
Pull up in the car, get out, say "hello." Gather up the halter, lead and whatever else we're going to use that day (usually just the training stick/whip), go into the paddock, walk a few feet in from the gate, make sure P is paying attention to me. Then, I turn around facing away from P, hunch my shoulders, lower my head and wait. It doesn't seem like it would be but it was really, really tough to resist the urge to look back and see where he was. Admittedly, it didn't get any easier to resist yesterday either! But, the technique works. On the first day, it took P maybe 5 minutes before he was standing just behind my left should looking at me like, "WTF are you doing?! Let's go but give me scritchings first, woman!" and yesterday, it took about half that. He chose ME. And, that's pretty darn cool.
On a totally unrelated note, my biggest concern at this point is whether or not I'll be able to afford to keep Phoenix. I'm concerned that I won't be able to afford the boarding and farrier fees. So, for now, I'm pretending I'm already paying for everything. Won't hurt to put the extra cash aside for emergencies and I'll know by the "do or die" date (August 1st) whether or not I can take that leap.
If I do, it will be the biggest, most significant $1 purchase of my life, I think.
