SUMMER!

Now that school is out I finally have time to update this blog!  I have been doing Parelli consistently with Romeo all this time even if I haven't posted about it and will probably work on it 4 times a week at least throughout the summer.  I was out today actually and I am really seeing improvement!  Our liberty work really took a knock when we moved barns, mostly I would suspect due to his un-confidant nature, but I have slowly been working at getting his confidence back by keeping him on the line and today I tried for the first time in a month taking him off the line and he did everything I asked perfectly, even some of the newer stuff I have been teaching him!

For a more creative CAS activity, I will be continuing my photography with my new camera by creating a photography blog for the summer.  I will post back once it is up and running.

I will also continue volunteering at the seniors home and continue biking.

Horse Stuff!

Since my last post I have really been focusing my efforts on Parelli.  I have been out normally 3 times a week at least to work with Romeo (biking there and back).  Since he has been moved to a new facility where he is by himself in his pasture, some of his old bad habits have been coming back, as well as some unwanted new ones.  I have been doing a lot of Parelli groundwork to reestablish the boundaries and respect that I require him to have.  It had been sometimes frustrating but I find myself developing even more patience than I thought was possible for me (since I am known to have little patience).  But Parelli is definitely making me a better horse person and giving me skills that I can apply to other areas in life.  I am so grateful that I discovered it because it has been doing wonders for Romeo's manners and I get complimented on it all the time.  For example, my barn owner was just telling me the other day that he was surprised that Romeo didn't even flinch when he throws hay over the gate with a pitchfork, as many horses will normally spook.  I have done a lot of work with swinging the Carrot Stick over and around him, and slapping it on the ground to make sure that he is desensitized to this sort of thing so that when he is in a situation such as the one mentioned, he hardly even looks.

Here are some pictures of us doing Parelli!

Start of Biking

Now that the weather has gotten nicer and less wet, I will begin biking for CAS.  I will bike either every day or every other day (hopefully for the whole summer until it starts getting cold again) to the barn and back.  This is an exercise that my physiotherapist recommended to me for my knee injury and since I'm unable to do most other exercise, I figured I would give this one a try and hopefully it will help strengthen my knee like he said it should.