Dove is beginning to settle in to her new home and enjoying some new activites as a diversion from her ridden dressage work. Here she is practising her natural head carriage and listening so carefully to everything she is asked to do. Makes a nice change from circles. She also responded well to clicker training and was persuaded to go over the tarpaulin without any pressure.
Kestrel has graduated to long reining on the Forest being clipped on for any potentially exciting bits. He was calm and collected all the way round even when the wild ponies ran down the hill to the watersplash behind him.
Tigerlily has also graduated to a proper saddle rather than her bareback pad. Caroline has been working all week on getting her used to tightening up the girth.
The only conundrum we're dealing with at the moment is how to stop Tigerlily licking me to death. With my boots wet through from the watersplash and my middle wet through from her licking me I looked as if I had had an encounter with a wallpaper brush. I don't feel like I can ask her not to do it because I don't want to do anything to make her cross or annoy her during this early sit ons and it's easy to fall into the trap of appeasing her. Caroline's next lot of homework is to be more strict (in a nice way) about rewarding for exact tasks and demeanour rather than using food to ask her to co-operate. It's an important distinction.
