This week, we've continued to work on Desensitizing, Yielding the HQ & FQ, & Flexing. We also introduced Lunging Stages 1 & 2 & Circle Driving.
He's been doing much better with the exercises we introduced last week. He started out a bit higher energy during Lunging, so we had to spend some time helping him with being able to bring that energy up & back down. This concept is really one of the biggest lessons for a horse. While positive reinforcement & liberty are great, I feel they can sometimes neglect to help a horse regulate themselves mentally to varying amounts of pressure. This will be very beneficial for Roam. With Circle Driving, I noticed that he's softer when traveling to the left versus the right, but by the end of the week, he had continued to get softer on the right as well.
I opted to wait on moving into the Round Pen as I felt Roam would benefit from getting more comfortable at the end of the lead rope with these exercises before turning him loose in the round pen.
Next week, we'll move to the round pen & begin to saddle while continuing to work on these groundwork exercises.
- Lexy Nuesch
Next week's update will be posted on Friday.
I do my best to get these updates posted in a timely manner, but it's not uncommon for me to be outside until after dark, depending on the weather, my schedule, & who gets worked when so updates will sometimes be posted quite late in the evening. Don't be alarmed if you don't see your update right away. In rare cases, I may have to push them until the next morning, but I'll reach out & let you know if so.