Wow am I tired. I just walked in the door and I am pretty sure there isn't a dry stitch on me and I look like I was attacked by a pack of hogs and probably smell like it too. I went to Spade with my game plan today. He has finally gotten to the place that the majority of my clients horses are when they first come. The next week I am going to be sore and we will probably not get along to well but by the end of the week I am going to LOVE him. Spade started to have the 'run away' response when I went in the pen. I immediately asked him to faced me. When he did I stood up and walked away and here he came. He stopped between me and the fence I looked at him to get his attention, he looked at me and walked a few more steps. He walked about four feet behind me and I turned to rubbed him. He stood as I put my halter on. I then rubbed all over his body with my training stick. He had a few flinches but nothing to bad. I even rubbed his rump and the hind legs with no problem. That really excited me being he was kicking yesterday. I played the rubbing game for a while to again let him know that I was not here to hurt him. Today I knew I was going to challenge his thinking and establish my place as the leader in the pen. After the friendly rub I started working on disengaging his hind quarters. I started swinging my stick at his hip and he slowly shifted his backend away from me. I did this for about five minutes on both sides. He finally started really understanding by the end. So I started doing the same on the front end. I finally got him to where I could walk toward his throat latch and he would cross over on his front. That is going to be super important when I get to moving his shoulders in the saddle. As I continued to move though my normal ground drills, I ran into a problem. I started lunging him to teach him to turn and stop on command. So first try I sent him out, which we started some of this yesterday, and he started moving in the right direction. He was pretty good going to the left. I would send him out he would trot a few strides and then I would yield his hindend. But then we went to the right he would stay soft until one area of the pen then he would push his nose in the halter and take of to the edge of the fence and unfortunately drag me with him. I haven't had this issue in a really long time. I later realized that there was a crucial drill that I had skipped. It has been so long, since I was off for the baby I had forgotten my own routine. After he took off on me twice the fight was on. It took him jerking on me twice before I finally figured out if I just went to the middle of the pen I could control him. But by that time I was over heated and mad. I wasn't really mad at Spade I was more mad because I knew that I was out of shape, my hands were hurting from the rope burns the other day, and I tore a huge hole in the leg of my pants. Tell you the truth I was more mad about the pants then anything!! I quickly found a place to stop because the heat had gotten to me. After cooling off for about 20 min and letting Spade soak up what I had already taught him, I was ready to start again. This time I came in there with a different attitude and my hands taped. I was ready to slow down and teach again. I had to get rid of the emotions and anger to start him back. There is no place for emotions in training. Horses are creatures that will have a fight nearly to death and five minutes later be grazing together. I try to do the same thing. As I entered he turned and walked a few steps toward me. I wanted to build his confidence a little so I went over somethings that he already learned and he was good at. I came in the house covered in sand and sweat and a hole in my pants. Tomorrow I won't forget to add the drill I missed.
I have to tell you I am talking to myself tonight. As I was feeding the horses and preparing to come home, I thought about the training drill that I had skipped on accident and how much pain and heartache it would have saved me if I had remembered to do it. I then thought, I do the same thing in other areas in my life and I end up in a jam there too. The "drill" that I always forget is PRAYER FIRST. How many times do we wake up and start our day and don't even invite our Lord to share the day with us. Someone once asked me, "Why do we always pray for God to fix all our problems when if we would pray first God would make the way so we wouldn't have those problems?" I thought they were wise words. 1 Thess. 5:17 tells us that we should pray without ceasing. I can tell you that I pray, but not near as much as I should and definitely not without ceasing. So the lesson today was definitely for me but I thought I would share it just incase it was for you too. So tomorrow remember to Pray First it might save you a lot of issues.
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