After days of very cold, windy weather today was sunny and warm.  Played sneaky catch-it game with Z. She went with it, by trying to keep her eye on me, and turning around QUICK to catch me. But it was clear that since the horses were in all yesterday,  Z  did not want to come in to play – so I joined her!

Set up toys in her paddock, and that woke her up. Tarp hanging on the fence was a scary monster, but at the end of the session where I never looked at it or directed her to it, she went over and kissed it and explored the blowing flaps! I was pleased that throughout the session I was able to ignore directing her toward it, and moved her focus to me and a task when she would get distracted by it, or worried that I was going to force her to go to it. I really got a good sense of the, "It's not about the...." mindset.

Also – yo yoed backwards over a pole; stepped over pole with front feet and stopped, then back; touch it (cones on fence posts), squeeze game between pole and fence. All of these took a long time to calmly achieve - except yo yo backwards over pole - cause that was done last, after she had worked on stepping over pole and waiting.

She began the session worried about the toys, so I needed to up my energy and maintain her focus, not letting her get running and go past me. I have to work on my leadership in that area – being quicker to figure out what she’ll do in order to get her to do something constructive. But overall, polite persistence worked wonderfully!

Interesting, today I had been worried that my plan was wrong, and hesitant to implement, and didn't know what was worrying me. Then while I was hanging out with her to begin with, I got it - I had just watched the Predator/Pray Animal segment of the LHB set, and was very affected. First time I'd really understood about how we look and sound to horses. Then I was worried that my plan was too direct line, and I'd be a predator. But I got it - as long as the plan is reasonable (interesting, progressive, purposeful, fair) and the implementation was in sympathy with her prey inclinations, then it was okay.