Not the longe I was hoping for...

Went out tho the Barn on Friday night, and it was freezing and packed - there was a break in the rain, and apparently everyone came out for a lesson!

I put Tesla in the grooming area, she was next to Moose, a 17.2hh Hano with some serious Tude. His owner was justly correcting his naughty behaviour and Tess was totally terrified. It felt like 1st grade, LOL and he wanted to pull her ponytail cause he liked her.

I want to leave like now.

She leaned up against the wall to get as far as possible from Moose - so what did I do?  I made her stand there and tough it out with lots of praise and sugar. By the end she still wasn't keen on Moose (who was obviously just trying to impress her). She needs to learn that just because others around her are getting in trouble doesn't mean she is in trouble. (oh those overachieving types ;)


I tacked her up and we headed up to the ring to longe (I wanted to see how she was moving after the Thrushbuster treatment) to find 8 horses whizzing around, and at least 3-4 different trainers.

Nope. Not happening, so I put away my longing stuff, and it was still light enough so we walked all around the property. By that time the wind was howling, and there were plenty of flapping tarps, equus-eating trees, and squealing ponies we could walk by. I remembered what Teresa had said about Carmen: how she was learning to check in rather than decide to handle scary situations on her own (totally paraphrasing there), and I could feel Tess looking to me to keep her safe. She was good, so we did a couple laps, and called it a night.

So, I didn't get the longe time I wanted, but I think we both got an even better trust-building lesson instead!