The day started out great, I got off work a bit early, cleaned her off, and got started. We did a bit of in-hand work, walk trot halt, and a few turns on the forehand and sidepassing moves (like two steps either side) just to make it different from Wednesday night. After about 5 minutes of that, we moved on to longeing.
I wanted to keep it short and sweet, since if she gets it that if she just does what I am asking, there is no friction, she will be happier in the long run. I am really not wanting her to be bored of this whole process, but she is already as far as I can tell. But I can't take her out of the ring until I can trust her more not to flatten me under a truck or something, you know? :)
She was doing GREAT. Absolutely gorgeous at the start. I started her on the left lead, walk-trot transitions to get her brain in gear and focused. We moved to walk-halt-trot transitions, then a halt, and switched sides. On the right lead, she was definitely more excited. I think because in this direction she is moving towards the paddocks and can see all her lovely friends farting about and munching delicious hay in the pasture, she started to lose focus on me. I tried trot-walk-trot transitions to get her brain back. and had her trotting over a few poles on a long loose circle (I was walking to keep the circle from being too tight, I don't want to wear out her joints). She was still doing great. Then the two horses closest to us started squealing and flirting and Suki was distracted. I gave her the trot cue, she didn't listen, a tap with the whip, and BLAMMO. Gone. Like twisted her body to me and just took off.
I made her do it again, she took off again, and I kept making her work until she realized I wasn't going to stop until she did what I wanted.
I used a stud-chain to keep her from taking off on me before, but I hated using it. It is just keeping her from taking off, not dealing with the issue, which is that she wants to avoid work. Is my reasoning faulty here? Should I be using the stud-chain until she gets it that she can't run away, or should I be persistent and just let her know that it is POSSIBLE for her to run away, but that it just means she has to work out harder?
I don't know. As you may be able to tell. I am feeling a little ... defeated right now. Lesson tomorrow, so we will see how that goes. I'll have to go out and ground-drive her tonight, step it up a notch.
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