Butterball and I joined Ms. GY at Sweet Dixie on Saturday morning and had the best time. I used the lessons from earlier that week with PW and didn't drop him, no matter what the distance. My friend came as our ground crew too and pointed out NOT letting him lengthen into downhill fences was helpful. Oh yeah, EM pointed that out too.
With that feeling, I started asking questions with some skinnier fences and combinations, and he was 100% game on. Not a single hesitation. It is a great feeling.
He looks so little in this picture!
We did another fun trail ride at Black Prong with Amanda and Hillary. I downloaded a .GPX map this time and we used that to navigate. It worked beautifully.
He's turning in to such a pro and knows to drink when we get to nice pretty water. Side note, this place must be absolutely soggy during the wet season
Henry got very skeptical when it got deeper than the regulation 11"
Then on Monday BB and I took a bareback hack around the neighborhood. All went well until the herd of five cows SPRINTED at the fence as we were walking by. A car was also coming down the road. Poor pony tried so hard to hold it together as he went sideways and then attempted a spin. He let me hop off though and then walked right up to the fence (granted while hiding DIRECTLY) behind me and sniffed noses with the offending moos.
This was the trouble maker that ran first
Ridiculously friendly
He was a little on edge, understandably, after that until we found a patch of nice black jack to munch on
He and his buckskin BFF can share the makeshift hay feeder
While Butterball and I haven't gone anywhere fun, we've been having some pretty lovely walks from our home barn. He's also been getting SO BRAVE about cows. And I think kinda likes them now.
These ladies live down the road from us (and occasionally in the woods directly adjacent to us)
The kids have had a bounce house, we've been getting closer and closer using our click and treat method. But now we've gotten to the point where he's ready to tromp all over it, so we stopped.
Newly arrived barrels were suspicious because they were newly arrived
This herd now lives directly next to us. I was DELIGHTED by Butterball meeting his matching cow
Everyone is interested
LITTLE MOOS!
They were being adorable and were really interested, but so was Butterball. When he'd turn towards them to try to say hi they'd run away a bit though. He's the friendliest pony and really, really wanted to touch them. He would've touched noses with one of the cows through the fence, but it is barbed wire and I didn't want him to catch himself on the barbs.
