Ice Cream The Whoa is Me Story In Progress

Well this morning I returned to work with Ice Cream after about a week hiatus. I was a little worried that I would find her back to her old ways having such a big break in training. She wasn't as bad as I thought. Her owner told me she had worked her in the round pen and was pleased with Miss Ice Creams join up and she is showing more respect but she refused to "whoa" for her. I worked her on free lunge and could get her to stop on "whoa" and cues from my body language. I am not letting her face me as of yet due to her little "charging episode" the last session we had. I worked her for awhile and then proceeded to mount and she is standing still and moving out on cue almost perfectly BUT yet again she walks right on through a whoa. I tried doing the one rein stop and yes she did eventually twirl to a stop...so tomorrow I will return to ride her some more and work on the "whoa" issue...this time I am going to make her go, go, go until she is begging for a "whoa". I want her to be looking forward to stopping tomorrow. Other than that little thing, she is turning much better, standing great for mounting and dismounting, she is moving off on just a cluck/kiss...her progress is GREAT! I will update tomorrow and see if the new approach works out...hopefully it does and we are VERY close to just doing a lot of riding and working out the wrinkles.
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Ice Cream Learning to Stand Still & Move Foreward On Cue

 Day 2 Under Saddle: 
Learning to stand still for mounting and also learning to move forward on cue.

What a day with miss Ice Cream. After a few objections to riding today...a few little swipes with the back legs and mini bucks in the rear end ...Ice Cream calmed down and listened to what I asked her to do. She actually got it! At first I just get on and let her roam around at free will. Letting her feel me in the saddle and move forward which is something she refused to do before. You could get on her BUT then she would stand completely still which is a sign of a horse that is not broke to ride. So today I start out by getting on and she just started moving without being cued. I let her do this for a little while to show her moving with someone on her back isn't that bad or scary after all. I then kinda went in reverse and taught her to stand still till cued to move forward. On a couple of occassions during her wondering around she would stop and show reluctance to move again. I first asked with a verbal cue, then I added the pressure from my legs, she didn't really get that concept...so I did the old secret "Miss Piggy" trick. You take the reins in your hand and just flop the excess back and forth on the withers until the horse moves and you immediately stop flopping and let the horse move around for about 40 feet encouraging the horse with your seat to keep moving till you ask it to "whoa". Then you ask it to start moving forward again by using the "Miss Piggy" trick again...the times you flop back and forth becomes less and less. You must also make sure that you give a verbal cue right before you do the "Miss Piggy" trick. Before long the horse is moving on the verbal cue. So anyways I got her to move forward on cue AND she learned to stand still for the mount...Mission Accomplished!

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A Tribute Video To My Equine Friends

Here is a tribute video I made to capture how I feel about horses, what horses do for the inside of me, and what I hope I can do with them...CONNECT...ahhhh they never cease to totally amaze me with thier gentle and wonderful ways! I love horses!
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