Winding Down from the Summer!

I know it’s been a very, very long time since I’ve posted an update (I was doing so good, posting every week!), but life has gotten a bit crazy lately.  It’s hard to keep up with everything during show season, and when the weather is nice outside, I just want to be outside with my animals.  Now that show season is over, I’m hoping to get back in the routine of posting blog updates weekly!

                Stubbs has been doing very well-he obviously loves his peanut butter jars!  I always give these to him when they are empty so he can try to lick all of the peanut butter out of the jar.  We started a new training class together, called Rally-O.  It’s kind of like Agility, but it has more commands to learn.  The commands are very detail oriented, so we will definitely need to put a lot of work into getting the details right!  I love learning new things with Stubbs and watching him become a well-trained dog. 

                Smooches has also been doing well—we are working with her on a lot of her training issues and are trying to stick it out with her to help her find an adopter.  Right now, we are working with Smooches on allowing people she doesn’t know to be where she can see them.  It’s going to be a long process, but I’m confident that we can get her through this!  She has a lot of energy, so we have been looking for creative ways to help her get her energy out while we wait for a decision about her floppy front leg.  We use treat-dispensing toys quite a bit, but with being very limited on physical activity, we are always looking for more ways to entertain her!

                I’ve given Lex some easy days and time off to help him wind down from show season.  He loves being outside all the time, so I try to put him out as often as I can.  Especially with how nice and cool the weather has been lately, I can’t stand to see the horses inside, standing in their stalls!  We are really working on transitions this winter.  I want to have these down for when we start doing canter classes next year.  Lex is still unsure about going into the canter, so we are focusing on that transition the most.  We have also started to work on patterns.  Lex usually has the pattern memorized after we do it for the second time, so we’ve been breaking patterns down a lot and working on small elements, and then putting all of the elements together maybe 3 times.  He’s doing better, but we sure have a long way to go!

                Comet has also gotten some time off lately, as I’ve just been really busy.  I’m trying to increase the strength in his stifles, while also increasing his overall fitness, so I usually lunge him for about 20 minutes at the long trot before I even get on.  He’s getting better with this, and I don’t want him to get burnt out on the other more difficult aspects of training for barrel racing because he is not fit enough.  He seems to love his new job and I’m excited to see how he continues to improve.