Great Day for a walk!

I am so proud and excited to write this blog! Today I think we had a minor breakthrough. I had to wait until later this evening to go out and play with Spade. Once I got out there I saw that the pen ground was a wreak. The ground had been rained on and the sloppy mess had hardened to a very chunky surface. I pulled out the TR3 drag and drug it 4 inches deep. At least it is much softer then it has been. I  went in the run and picked up the lead that Spade has been dragging the last few days. I tugged his lead a little and he was a little worried. So I walked up and scratched his forehead. He relaxed and started to follow me into the round pen. When he stepped on the new soft dirt he had to sniff it first. I am sure the fluffiness of the dirt felt funny to him. I thought it was kinda squishy too. In stead of going through the normal routine I wanted to see how he handled some normal things since he hasn't been worked in two days because of the rain. So I immediately tried to lead him across the tarp. He pause and walked around it two or three times then walked over it. He also jumped the barrels again today. I pet him and then walked over and grabbed my brush and brushed all the mud off of him. I HATE touching a dirty horse. In the process I brushed all the way to the top of his hips. This is the furtherest he will let me go with out a threat of a kick. I grabbed the surcingle and the saddle pad and he wanted to smell the saddle pad before I put it on him. One sniff and I threw it right up there. Then the surcingle, he did fine. Not even a wiggle. This is what I look for when I am saddling a horse. I will not saddle or mount them until they are fully accepting of all my gear. Every time I have short cut things I have been bucked off, so this is why I double do this part.
I started working over the barrels and tarp again with him saddled. He was perfectly fine until he went over the tarp and it accidentally wrapped around his hoof. He quickly jumped which made it wrap around both back legs. Who would have guessed that would happen? He took off and the tarp hung on.  He went the kicking and the tarp ripped to pieces. I was confused because he dragged it all over the pen the other day. So I tied it to his lead rope the same way today.  The second it started moving he got faster and faster. After a few crazy rounds he relaxed and turned and looked at the tarp. When the tarp would get close to his feet he would try to kick it and it would wrap around his legs. I thought that this was good because there was a response to his kick that made him uncomfortable. He eventually had the tarp shredded. By the end of it all he was really hot. I decided to call it a day but he was so hot that I really wanted to wash him off. I knew that wasn't an option. I knew he would drag me off or get loose if I tried that. Instead I knew that he was so tired and in the thinking mode, so I took him out for his first walk outside the round pen. For 34 days Spade has lived in the smallest box he has ever seen. I am sure it is similar to solitary confinement. He can't even really see outside his pen. Today I was listening to a horse behaviorist that was explaining that a horse won't go into an area that he has never been without encouragement from a herd member or a handler.

Especially one with lots of instinct. This made me feel better. I put on my gloves to keep from getting a rope burn just in case he decided to take off. I opened the front gate and eased him out. He took a few steps and looked around nervously. We took a few more steps and he seemed to relax a bit. We rounded the back of the barn and the peanut gallery all came to the back of the stalls to say Hi. This made him relax even more. Well until he got to the water hose all over the ground. He was worried and I didn't want to start anything dramatic so I asked him to go around it. We then started the long walk from the barn to the arena. It felt similar to the feeling that you get during that first walk outside after being sick. Spade took small cautious steps and watched everything closely. Danial was driving the car a good 100 ft. away, I had a friend riding in the arena, the dogs were running around but he soaked it all in and stuck with me. When we approached the alleyway to the arena he froze. He wasn't wild about going in that area. I didn't push the issue. He started getting a little antsy so I turned around and headed back to his pen. On the way back he walked behind me like he had done it all his life. When I took him back to the pen he had a different attitude about him. He acted like the walk was a real treat. I took his halter off and let him drink. Then he came back out of his run and walked up. I gave him a scratch and left for the day. Needless to say I am very excited to see how he is in the morning. I have a few more things that I would like to do with him before I start the saddling process.
If you have been keeping up with my blog. Many of you know that I have been really frustrated on the time this is taking. Way more then I expected. But today Mary Miller-Jordan posted a post on the Supreme Extreme group page. She is a great friend that I haven't even meet yet, but I thought this was a wise statement.  She wrote:

As someone that has a tendency to allow myself to become emotionally affected by the words and thoughts of others, I find I MUST remind myself that the only person who can truly "rip me down" is myself - it is not easy, but you DO have the ability to refocus and Not allow the negative words of another change your own personal thoughts - I find it helps to remind myself of something I feel very confident in/am proud of and dwell on that - it gives the mind a "Positive" place to go and helps push those negative thoughts away :-) The neat thing about "focusing" our thoughts is it's only possible to truly dwell on ONE thought at a time - even those of you multitaskers will still find your mind will be more focused on One thought at any one time - so if that thought is Negative (perhaps your dwelling on something you think someone insinuated negatively about you) then you CAN FORCE your Mind to re-focus on something else - but it needs to be a Real thought - just saying "I must think positive thoughts" doesn't get it done for me - think of something you feel good about or are proud of - maybe you are proud of your hair-do, or you are a good speller, or your dog loves you, or something else - Anything - as long as it is positive and simply "Train" your mind to go to that thought every time you feel the negative thought creep back in - and it WILL creep back in again and again, but the beauty of the mind is we can send it away again and again by re-focusing on that positive thought - and the REALLY cool thing is the more we do this the more we "Train" our brain to think this way - we literally re-wire it so that the next time a negative thoughts enters our mind, our mind WANTS to go find and dwell on a positive thought instead! - Now, I am far from perfect and I do get down and fixated on negative things sometimes - but for me - this method above will work EVERY time as long as I make the Conscious decision to put it to use! :-)


This reminded me of Phil 4:8
8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.


Keep you thoughts positive today....