Sunday, February 12

[gottawonder]

Today I am grateful for:

Still very lovely weather.

Help from my Sweetie to get Sasha's (goat) hooves trimmed.

We went to the barn, and the other rider rode with me for a while. It was nice to chat with her.

She had her gigantic dog there, and my Sweetie played with it to keep it from interfering with our riding.

Most of my work with River went very well, but he stuck on one thing for a long time, and this is frustrating for me. He often does "stick" on one thing, often something he already knows. It leads to this unpleasant situation where I have to keep working on that one movement until he gives me something I can reward. What makes it hard to understand, is that he often sticks on something he is already pretty familiar with.

One day, he doesn't back up well. Another day he fidgets around instead of ground tying. Today he didn't want to stay with me on a Liberty circle, but only on one direction.

I feel badly about then making the time we work too long, and likely frustrating for him, but I can't really stop until he gives something correct, even if it is a partial effort. Today it took about 20 minutes to get get to a spot where I could leave it, but that meant that our training went on for far too long.

So, there you go. I did my best to end on a good note with easy things.

We came home and watched "Lose Friends and Alienate People", a film about a guy who was desperate to be an "interviewer to the stars" and thus be kind of part of the scene, only to discover that it wasn't what he wanted. I feel like it all kind of fell flat. The main character seemed shallow and self-absorbed, and he supposedly "changed", but I felt like he was still a self-absorbed jerk who just decided he wanted something else now. He wasn't a better person.

I learned that that aluminium foil was invented in Switzerland, and the first industrial use was to wrap Toblerone chocolate bars

https://www.alufoil.org/history

Comments

[sherlockishere]

Best chocolate ever: Toblerone.

[ratunderpaper]

Toblerone is the world's most perfect chocolate.

[lantairvlea]

It is always frustrating when the horse gets stuck on something. The worst is when you're in a "great! One more thing and we're done!" and then everything falls apart and what you thought was the last two minutes of your workout was actually the start of the next 30!

[gottawonder]

Yes, that's often how it goes. We can be about 30 minutes in, getting ready to wind up the ground work, and he'll stick on one thing that as you say, takes as long as the rest of the session, so then I have to end it when he finally does something I can reward, and I don't end up riding because you need to leave it there.

Those can be tough sessions, because you desperately want it to end with him understanding the ask, and not getting frustrated over it.

[lantairvlea]

Yeah, had a session like that today with the horse I have in training. He did so great yesterday, but was an absolute pill today. Frustrating, but you have to work with what you have.

Also of note "ending on a good note" can happen multiple times. It doesn't have to be the complete end of all work, it could simply be a pause and rest for a minute or two before resuming and moving on to another activity.

[gottawonder]

For sure, but there are times where if the thing you struggle with happens finally after a long session, you just leave it there!