Jetta had her first real training day with Ruth. She was mostly very calm and relaxed about it all. Yay! Ruth had her trotting in the round pen wearing what she called a "rhythm collector." Jetta didn't fight against it and quickly figured out that she could lower her head and relax her back. She has learned to brace against the bit and lean into the bridle with the running martingale she was originally trained with. She has a bulky muscle under her neck and not much on top. We are trying to show her a better way of going. I don't usually like gadget-type shortcuts, but this seemed pretty benign since she didn't fight against it and it was quite loose. Within 5 minutes Jetta had figured it out.
The round pen was full of old tarps, milk jugs, orange cones, etc. Ruth's two dogs trotted around and around the outside of the round pen keeping up with Jetta. Ruth spread the tarps out near the rail and Jetta worked easily over them. Then Ruth hung them on the fence, the breeze blew them around, but Jetta stayed relaxed and kept working. She was amazingly unflappable for a four-year-old arab! She did work up a good sweat, but no hard breathing and she recovered almost immediately when asked to stop. All good signs! I am smiling here, people, can't you tell? See the video:
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