I got a pattern done with Dandy!

R at the barn was encouraging me to record a pattern with Dandy, since I am teaching him to do Liberty with me.

I thought, yeah, we could give it a shot. I was thinking "I have a few days to work on this before the virtual show closes for entries"....

Then I remembered that my Sweetie is going to his niece's wedding, and since Dandy is at home, not at the barn, I would have no one to record us...

Unless...

I decided to just GO FOR IT tonight, pretty much with us never having practiced this pattern AT ALL.

It took four tries, after some warm ups, but I think we did quite well.

There's one spot where we turned around that probably should be a proper turn on the hindquarters, and we won't score well for that, but everything else looked pretty darn good.

I am proud of Dandy, since we really only just got to him trotting beside me very recently, and for him to trot beside me and then do a good, solid halt is pretty impressive. Staying with me so well in the circles is VERY good for how little we've worked together this summer.

I was a little gruff about getting this done, as I had just realized that we had to do it NOW or not get a video for this show (which really wouldn't have been the end of the world), as well as we were running out of daylight.

This was done at about 9:30 at night, and the clock was ticking.

Still, I am very happy with how well he did, and for how I managed to stay focused too.

No, I'm not leading him with any kind of neck rope or anything, he just sticks right to me at Liberty.

https://youtu.be/_ZT-k9O50zQ?si=FrXhKNry9xn43nkN

Tuesday, July 15

Today I am grateful for:

Good sleep.

Managing to avoid the day for some time, before getting to it.

I did talk with Trainwreck, who sounds good. She's enjoying having a car again, and it sounds like she's been getting to the lake, and getting errands run for herself.

I wonder how this feels for her, being sober?

I talked with Sister E for a while too, though it wasn't particularly goal-oriented. Chatter.

Then I did chores and headed to the perennial flower bed that has gotten terribly over run with grass, to the point where some plants are struggling to bloom this year.

I need to do something more permanent than just pulling out the grass. I've done all kinds of mulching with cardboard and a layer of wood shavings, but it doesn't do much.

Then I went to see River.

He's still sore (sigh). I worked with him on yields and walking with purpose again, and all of that is still good and useful training.

R asked me to stay and help another rider during her lesson, to help mimic a horse show, where there are other horses in the arena. R's daughter also rode her horse in the arena.

We did things like trot or walk beside this nervous horse, to come up from behind like in a show when you're on the rail, and to just do our own thing while the rider was working, so that her horse learned to focus on her and not the other horses.

I might be doing that again next week, for this other rider.

During this time, my Sweetie texted to let me know his car had an issue with it's rear differential fluid, which he never would have noticed except he was getting the oil changed and the service person pointed out that it was low, and added fluid, only to see that it was leaking right out.

So, he had to have the car towed from the city to our mechanic out here, also so that he could get a ride home with the tow truck driver.

We have to see if there was any damage done by the lack of fluid, and it might take a while to get the work done, even if it is just a hose replacement.

So that means that he is now taking my car to his niece's wedding, a ten hour drive. He was going to take the truck, but that would cost a ton more in fuel, AND, why put all those miles on a basically new vehicle? That's not what the truck is for. It's meant to be used for hauling things, not long highway miles. We want that truck to last us for twenty years, not to burn out like a commuter car.

Anyhow. I came home from the barn, turned everyone out into their pastures, and just then my Sweetie got home with the tow truck driver.

My Sweetie helped me mow the round pen and rake up the clippings so that I could try to record the pattern, and then he recorded Dandy and I (see other post for video link).

I had the water on the garden while we were doing that too, since you can really never multitask enough.

Then we came in, and he still needed to pack for his trip, as he plans to leave tomorrow.

Yes, I had suggested that he pack this past weekend, but of course that was a silly idea.

Instead, we are trying to get his clothes ready at 10:30 pm at night, when he's hoping to get up and leave fairly early tomorrow morning.

I had washed some shirts and such for him today, and the packing didn't take too long, but I noticed that the pants he wants to wear for the wedding had something going on with the hem of one leg...

I looked at it and the way it was hemmed (by a tailor, no less) was some kind of very loose stitch that if anything pulled on it, the whole thing went. No, not a running stitch, some kind of looping machine stitch with no integrity. What a cheap, bad job of a hem.

So, I now had to run a proper stitch around both of his pant legs, since I saw that the other leg was going to do the same thing...just a running stitch, but a proper job of it, with a tiny stitch on the visible side, nearly invisible, and properly overlapped so that it wouldn't easily pull out.

Then I downloaded the video of Dandy and I to my YouTube channel and entered it in the virtual show.

I'm not terribly worried about a score, though I think we did well enough. I'm just very pleased at how well Dandy did today! He's not used to doing anything formal like this. We haven't done anything like this with his training.

Wednesday, July 16

Today I am grateful for:

Good sleep.

How wonderful it is to have kitty snuggles.

My Sweetie got going in good time.

I had a pretty quiet day.

I did go to see River, and though he seemed pretty good today, R thought we'd maybe not try our luck, and let him rest today.

I worked with two of her horses instead. I worked with them before as a pair. Today we didn't do very much with them as a team, but worked with them individually first, then together as a team side by side.

It's good to get the experience of working with different horses.

R looked at my video with Dandy and thought we did a good job.

Then I came home, let everyone out into their pastures, and ate.

Then I went back outside and worked with Wonder and Dandy for about an hour.

I talked with my Sweetie, who had a good drive to B.C, and tonight they had the wedding rehearsal and supper, though he himself doesn't do anything. The wedding itself is tomorrow.

He's trying to meet up with a friend of ours that we were really close with in Wyoming years ago, and now he lives in B.C.