Muddin'

Hubby is away down under, so I don't have to deal with what Susan and Denise do right now!! Unlimited horsey time!! YAY!! I had brand new overalls on which did not look so brand new when we were done!! Par for the course I guess!! 

So, after a horribly long and frustrating ordeal I was able to put some marching band albums and an album of different horns, sirens and alarms on my ipod. Years ago my husband got me the portable speakers you see in the picture below. It's kind of like a case too so the ipod goes inside and is protected. He bought it for when I was taking our now 5 year old son out for a walk as a baby! So, now it has been repurposed!! I should mention why I downloaded these songs. We are going to hopefully attempt a Christmas parade this year with our horses!! By we I mean probably just Bernie, Lucas, Linus and I. I think the others are not feeling so brave about the idea. Which is too bad because Becky has a Curly!

We had an insane amount of rain over the last couple of days. Only a bit of drizzle here and there today so we were good to go for attacking some water!! First I introduced Linus to the source of the racket!! He was a bit more wound about it than I expected but he was wound to begin with today!! He accepted it at first and then I think it was just too much with the noise and me pressing him to get his feet wet!! He started acting up so I made him back up. He tried to dance and prance and buck and rear a few times so I told him if he wanted to go he was going to go!! I brought him back to the corral and unclipped the lead rope and swung it around and made him blow off some steam!! He did not like being pushed to move in the sluggish and heavy mud so he quickly got over his boyish antics and came over licking and chewing with his head down...thank you Sir, can we please get to work now?! I decided there was lots of water right in their corral and back pasture to work with at first so I trudged through it all with him. It did take some convincing but I am proud to say I did eventually get him through all the water I wanted to. When he refused, I made him back up and go at it again. I did not have treats (by choice!) so his reward to go through was my praise, a head rub and no more backing up!!

Oh goodness Linus that water is not attacking you!! He is wearing the halter we won in the Halloween Trail Ride last weekend. I actually found that he did more head shaking than with the green rope halter I normally use on him. He kept trying to get at the clip underneath so I think the smaller chin knot on this one was annoying him. I'll try the other halter tomorrow with some water work to see if it is the halter or the work.

I had to laugh at Linus when the marching bands came on. He puffed right up and started to walk like some of the real proud looking parade horses do. He took some adjusting to the trumpet parts but when the Lone trumpet songs came on like the soldiers Reveille, he was all proud again. The worst song for his tolerance so far was the Jaws tune. He wasn't crazy about that. Which just means I will have to play it more. I wondered if playing the music would even have an effect for him but I am really glad now that I did do it. I want to expose him to as much as possible before we hit the parade! At the parade is not the time to find out he hates marching bands!!! 

When I was happy with our ground work I saddled Linus and was intending to play the music while continuing with mounted water work but my batteries died so we carried on less our accompaniment! I must not have had a rein clipped on all the way because I got on Linus and when I pulled him away from the soggy lawn my rein came right off!! I was really baffled at first because the were new. I just had them all apart to stain them and thought maybe I messed up putting them back together. Nope, it just wasn't clipped all the way. Thankfully I had kept the rope halter on him under his hackamore (first time I've done so) and had the lead wrapped around my horn. I did this in case I had to get off and reinforce anything at deeper water. It sure came in handy and was on the same side as the fallen rein!!

Linus was pretty funny with some of the water. I got him into some places where he was surrounded and had no choice but to carry on! He is definitely better with muddy water than he is with clear water that has grass or trees reflecting. I prevailed and became more of a pain in his ass (thank you Marjolein!) than the water though!! I have a lot of tack cleaning to do now!! 

I attached a short video of me walking him through a large puddle with some marching band in the background. Forgive the early Christmas tunes but I think the reason I am playing it is justified!! The quality isn't the greatest since it was taken from my phone, but you get the idea of him being relaxed. When you do see his hesitation it is worth noting that when we started he would pull back a few steps. Now that he knows I wasn't giving in all I had to do was click to him and he came and joined me in the water! 

I hope he is mulling of this over in his dreams tonight because tomorrow is bagpipes!!!

Best of luck to everyone taking part in the November challenge. With the parade training I am not sure how much of it we will get to but I did pass the list on to a friend in hopes of encouraging her to get at it!! Can't wait to read the posts from the challenge!

Donna & Linus

muddy in Lunenburg, ON