Finally! The Big News!!!

Old picture, but he looks excited so it works!

We finally got the big news we were waiting on!!  My husband got a job!  A really awesome job!  A job that is in my old hometown so after almost six years I finally get to move back close to my family and all of my old friends and my dressage trainer!  Yay!!  I'll post more soon.  I'm too excited to think of what to write.  :D

Chrome's Monthly Progress Report (and fourteenth ride!)

 Sorry the lighting sucks on this picture.  Trust me it was the best one of the whole bunch.  :(

Date: 1-19-13
Age: 3 Years 8 Months
Height: 15.2hh
Height Gain: None.
Weight:  I was lazy and didn't measure his weight.  :)
 Weight Gain: I don't know.

 Progress:  We've been doing some clicker training and riding, but that's about it.  Scroll down to read more (and see pictures) from today's ride! 

Goals:  There's been a delay on the decision making front so I'm still impatiently waiting.....  Trust me it will be worth the wait when I finally tell you guys!

Now on to the ride!  It was so pretty again that I had to go for a ride.  We walked out to the barn (halfway across the thirty acres) to get Chrome so we could measure him and I rode him back to the house.  After measuring him and taking pictures we went to the pasture to ride around for a bit.  The pictures tell the story better than I can.....

This is when we walked up to the house to measure him.  I hadn't even put the bridle on him yet.  Taking a picture from his back makes my husband look short (he's 5'10") LOL!

 I wish I hadn't been looking away, but he's so cute I added it anyway.

 Saying hi to handsome Faran.

 My turn to say hi to Faran.  He's getting a lot more confident about approaching while I'm on Chrome's back.  :D

 And then we stood on the pedestal.  Of course he tried everything he knew to get a treat.  Here he's offering his lateral flexion.  :)

 Here I'm asking him to smile.  My husband got the picture mid smile, but it's still cute.  Isn't Chrome so good at multitasking?  He can stand on his pedestal and do tricks at the same time.  I can barely walk and chew gum at the same time lol!

 Sidesaddle (without the saddle) anyone?  This was the first time I'd ever sat on him sideways or backwards.  Notice he's standing loose with no one holding him?  He's such a good boy!!

Me:  "Where's the steering on this thing??"

Chrome:  "Mom.... I think you got something backwards....."

I rode him around a bit while sitting backwards on him.  Wow, I forgot how weird that feels lol.  He was totally fine with it.  Then when I turned back around I was thinking..... where did his shoulders go??  I wish he was as wide up front as he is in the booty lol.

Then I rode him back out to the barn so we could give them hay.  On the way out there I picked up the rope that was attached to his halter and swung it gently at his haunches while asking him to trot and guess what!  He did!  LOL.  He didn't need a ground cue at all and trotted four or five strides.  Such a good boy!  I could see myself getting hooked on trotting pretty quickly hehe.  I think we will work on steering a bit more before we experiment too much with speed lol.

So anyway that pretty much covers it.  I'll talk to you guys later!

Chrome's Thirteenth Ride!

 
We've been having some crappy winter weather, so when today turned out slightly warmer and sunny I decided I couldn't pass up the chance to ride Chrome.  :D  He was such a good boy!

I got my clicker, treats, bridle, helmet and gloves, then headed for the pasture.  I bridled him and then used his tire pedestal to get on bareback.  First we worked on some lateral flexion because even though he knows it from the ground I haven't really worked on it from his back.  He can be difficult to steer (although that's getting MUCH better) because he doesn't fully understand bridle pressure, so I figured lateral flexion would help him understand the lateral bridle cues.  It worked!  At first when I asked him to flex he would walk circles, but he quickly figured out to stand still.  The funny part is he thinks bumping my leg is what I'm clicking LOL!  We'll work on that.  After I got him doing both sides off of light rein pressure (okay it was light for him, we need to work on lightness some more) I asked him to walk off and then tried circling him.  It worked!  He listened to the rein pressure much better.

So then we started walking off into the pasture.  He was a little hesitant because of the mud (and he was still thinking about flexion) so I asked my husband to lead him so I could click a straight, forward walk.  Once he figured that out I decided to try trotting.  It took a couple of tries, but he finally trotted (going off of the cue of my husband jogging, he still doesn't understand that leg pressure can mean go faster, he just thinks it means walk).  We only went three or four steps before I clicked and he stopped.  The second time he wasn't too sure, but the third time he was all for it!  You could tell he was understanding and getting excited about trotting and earning a click.  So I decided at that point to work on walk and whoa again lol.  I don't want him getting too excited, especially bareback with iffy steering and stopping hehe.

I only rode for about ten minutes and then I got off and practiced a little with his backing from his tail.  He thought at first he was supposed to spin circles, pulling me along by his tail, but my husband put his hand on Chrome's chest to remind him to go backwards and he did great after that.  Then I took him for a short walk on the road.  We went to the hill and practiced backing uphill.  He remembered the work we had done on it, but still needs practice at backing straight and with his head down.  We will get there.  :)  I'm going to try to get out and do more clicker training with him, but a lot of it will depend on the weather.  :)

I think I'm going to skip doing a recap of 2012 post because it was rather boring and full of non-horse related things lol.  I'm going to try to make 2013 a lot more horse/fun filled.  I gotta get out of this rut I'm in.  So look forward to a Goals of 2013 post soon!!  One of my goals is going to be getting back into posting on my blog and reading yours!  Sorry I'm been so quiet.

P.S.  My apologies for not getting any pictures today.  The one up top is an old one.  :)

Happy New Year!!!

I just wanted to wish everyone a happy new year!!!!  Sorry I don't have any photos or a really thought out post for you, but I'm visiting relatives so I'm too busy to be on the computer much.  :D  I just wanted to let you all know that my husband and I are waiting on a really important decision to be made that will affect my entire year so I'm going to wait until we know the answer before I write my customary new year goals.  Keep your fingers crossed because we are really excited about this!  :D  I hope everyone had a fantastic day and I can't wait to get caught up on everyone's blogs.  Happy new year!!