Gia - session 113 - Lunging with the Pessoa training system
If you live in my area, then you are aware of the nasty line of storms that rolled through this morning. Luckily, we did not have any storm damage, but the storm did leave us with a lot of high winds.
So, I stuck with just lunging again today. However, I opted to lunge Gia using my Pessoa Training System.
The "Pessoa" is a system of ropes and pullies that you can attach to a regular training surcingle. There is a piece that goes around the back end of the horse, and then the ropes and pullies can attach in numerous places, depending on what stage of training your horse is at.
I can't remember if I have worked Gia in the "Pessoa" before, so I took it nice and slow today. Sometimes, a horse will over-react when they feel the pressure and movement on their hind end. I took a video of Gia when we first started our session today. In the video, you can see that she doesn't really react to it at all. It is very possible that I used it on her way back when I was first working with her, before I started blogging about her, but even if that is the case, it's still been a while.
I stuck with the same amount of time and the same type of work that I have been doing on the lunge. At the canter, I did ask her to keep her canter a bit longer - for up to one lap, and then 1 1/2 laps around the circle. She did try to stop several times, but it was very easy to get her going again, and fairly easy to keep her going. I just had to catch her, and keep her from stopping, in time.
At the end of our work, her mouth was much foamier than usual. She typically gets fairly foamy on her right side, but not so much on her left. Today, she was super foamy on both sides. This is a good sign that she really liked the work with the "Pessoa". I will most likely keep this in her regimen from now on.
On another, funnier, note - Danielle, who was helping me today, mentioned that Gia was very good about standing on her TheraBand pad today. However, as soon as Gia heard Danielle's timer go off, she picked her foot up and pushed the pad out of the way. We might have to start using silent timers for this one ...
So, I stuck with just lunging again today. However, I opted to lunge Gia using my Pessoa Training System.
The "Pessoa" is a system of ropes and pullies that you can attach to a regular training surcingle. There is a piece that goes around the back end of the horse, and then the ropes and pullies can attach in numerous places, depending on what stage of training your horse is at.
I can't remember if I have worked Gia in the "Pessoa" before, so I took it nice and slow today. Sometimes, a horse will over-react when they feel the pressure and movement on their hind end. I took a video of Gia when we first started our session today. In the video, you can see that she doesn't really react to it at all. It is very possible that I used it on her way back when I was first working with her, before I started blogging about her, but even if that is the case, it's still been a while.
I stuck with the same amount of time and the same type of work that I have been doing on the lunge. At the canter, I did ask her to keep her canter a bit longer - for up to one lap, and then 1 1/2 laps around the circle. She did try to stop several times, but it was very easy to get her going again, and fairly easy to keep her going. I just had to catch her, and keep her from stopping, in time.
At the end of our work, her mouth was much foamier than usual. She typically gets fairly foamy on her right side, but not so much on her left. Today, she was super foamy on both sides. This is a good sign that she really liked the work with the "Pessoa". I will most likely keep this in her regimen from now on.
On another, funnier, note - Danielle, who was helping me today, mentioned that Gia was very good about standing on her TheraBand pad today. However, as soon as Gia heard Danielle's timer go off, she picked her foot up and pushed the pad out of the way. We might have to start using silent timers for this one ...
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