Wednesday

Wednesday

It was another fine day in paradise. Sunny and warm, which is exactly what you Wisconsin-ites probably don’t want to hear!

Sorry to give you the whole sordid account of my day, but this is the only journal that I am keeping, and I would like to have a log of events to look back on…

Josie met me with a little more appreciation this morning. I was expecting that since we had a pretty emotional day yesterday. I fed her breakfast, and then went and fed myself breakfast. The food here is great! Anyhow, when I went back to the pens, Kristen had gotten Mia out for a stroll. Mia is Josie’s next door pen-mate. This was a tragic occurrence in Josie’s life, and she was basically a whirling dervish in her pen. Since I wasn’t there when it started, I was basically unable to really bring her back to planet earth. Herd bound-ness really sucks. So I waited and watched. Eventually Mia returned to the next door pen. Of course, Josie immediately went over to her for safety and comfort. At that point I asked Kristen to defend her herd of two (her and Mia) and keep Josie away from her. This was a very interesting exercise because Josie went very deeply right brain introvert coming off of her adrenaline rush from before. Basically her feet were rooted to one spot, she was not blinking for MINUTES at a time, and her breaths were shallow and quick. There were a few breakthroughs. Once she paid attention to me (I was standing at the entrance to the pen). There was some licking and chewing and yawning, and then she went back into her trance. The other was when another horse and person walked by. They got almost by, and then she pulled herself out of her trance to move to look at them. More licking and chewing and lots of yawning. All in all, we stayed with her for more than half an hour. She probably blinked 5 times during that period (which to all of you non-horsey people, that means she was really stuck in a trance and NOT thinking). Right brain introverts can suck so far inside themselves that they are unaware of everything around them. I have not seen that level of introversion from her since I first got her. She definitely is a horse that lacks confidence in new environments. I think she is innately very right brain introverted, and when she becomes unconfident in her environment she becomes pretty extreme. Over the past two years I have gotten her to become more left brained about life, but this experience has shown me what shows up under stress. The bottom line is that I need to become more important to her as a leader to help her through these sticky situations. That will be my biggest goal this year—to become a better leader for her.

So we went off to morning classroom sessions. I wore my Vibram Fivefingers today (see a previous post in January if you don’t know what I am talking about…) They are the most amazing shoes ever! All of the aches in my ankles and knees went away when I wore them, and my posture became so much better! I didn’t even believe all the hype about that, but it really is true! It is such an organic, lovely experience to feel the different substrates that you walk on in a day! When you wear regular shoes, your footfall is dictated by the soles that you are wearing. In these shoes, you are basically barefoot, but with a protective sole. Your foot rolls and contacts the ground naturally, which really feels great! Enough on that. They are amazing and you should all google them to find out more about them! Vibram Fivefingers!

So we split up into personality remudas today. I went to the right brain introvert one. I think I am a pretty even split between right brain and left brain introvert. Basically right brainers do more with their emotions, and are more artistic. Left brainers are more logical thinkers. I have learned to become extroverted through my job, but it is not my innate characteristic. It was interesting to think about the different human personalities and how we relate to one another. All in all, I am really a pretty good match for Josie…

The afternoon play session was awesome! I took Josie out and she was in a really playful frame of mind to start out with. It was definitely time to get out of the pen! I followed Vegas and Mia towards the Enchanted Forest playground. There is a bridge that we have not been able to cross yet. We got all four feet on it yesterday, but she hasn’t had the confidence to cross it yet. (Basically you cross over to an island of really cool play equipment!). Instead of trying the bridge this morning, I asked her to cross the stream instead. She went over with little effort, which was good. We played around with some falling leaf on the other side, then we went to play in the pond. Josie is not so sure about water, but Vegas (the fish!) went right in and inspired her to give it a try. She loved it when she got in there! She splashed and kept sticking her whole muzzle under water. It was pretty funny. We then went and played over some logs (Kari got a great picture of her jumping—which is a great feat because the girl is just not into jumping!). Soon enough, it was time to go up to our afternoon focus sessions.

I went to the change of direction today. It was a really good session. The take home message is to follow your horse’s tail around in a spiral to help suck them in, and then drive them back out the other direction. The key to success is to circle them until they are ready to have a conversation/come in. Don’t ask until they are ready!!!!! That is the key to settting them (and you) up for success. And it WORKS! By golly, it works! We got some really lovely draws and change of direction. Then Josie went totally right brained on me again and laid down AGAIN on the circling game. Definite feedback that there was too much pressure (probably mostly from the environment, some from me). I talked with an instructor about it, and she said that I probably need to be even more careful of her threshold and asking too much since she is so introverted right now. We were in the same scary field as yesterday, so that probably contributed. I definitely have food for thought. I need to go easy on my right brained introvert and not ask too much. It can be so hard in this environment because there are so many cool things to go and do! I just need to honor her need to take things slow and not push her to do too many things out of her comfort zone. So we will be playing with that the rest of the week! I’ve rambled on enough for today!

Savvy on!

Molly and Josie