Gia - session 11 - more boat bumpers and clipping

I worked with Gia today on all the same things we have been doing lately.  She was pretty quiet in the crossties and very quiet when I put the saddle pad on her.  She only fussed once when I was girthing her, but I still tightened it all the way while I let her eat grass.  Once in the round pen, I attached the boat bumpers to the saddle, up in front of the girth.  She was perfectly fine working around the circle with the bumpers there.  After she showed her first signs of submission, I moved the bumpers back a little, to right on top of the stirrups.  She was also fine working with them in that position.  Once again, I moved the bumpers back a little further, so that they were more in her flank area.  She definitely had something to say about that!  She threw in a few good bucks, several times, as I asked her to work around the circle.  Each time she threw a fit, I moved towards her head to get her to turn around and work the other way.  This action mostly shuts down the bucking, but it took her quite a bit longer to relax and give me signs of submission.  I had her work several times in each direction until she was definitely more relaxed and not reactive about the bumpers at all. 

Once I brought her back into the crossties and untacked her, I set a bit of grain in front of her and turned on the clippers to work on her right front leg.  She was very reactive to the clippers today, and it took a little while to be able to actually use them on her.  She eventually realized that if she wanted to eat the grain, then she had to stand still for me to clip her.  I was able to get most of the leg clipped before she finished, but it wasn't the most relaxed that she has been for this.  At the end, she did get brave enough to touch the cord of the clippers.  She only barely touched it, and then quickly pulled her nose away, but it's a start!