Gia - sessions 1177-1179 - more practice with the carrot ball!

Monday 11/24-Wednesday 11/26

 From Danielle:


Gia Blog-Short and Sweet (the week!)

I worked with Gia again this past week on her grooming. With Thanksgiving on

Thursday, Heather and I only worked horses Mon-Wed this week. This week’s mission

was to find a way to keep Gia occupied a bit longer. Seeing as I have had consistent

success with the carrot ball, I wanted to continue that, but I needed to figure out a way

to keep Gia occupied and still. After reading one of the comments on last week’s blog

from one of my students that Gia reminded her of a special ed student, I had an idea.

With the same student, earlier in the week, we had been discussing self calming

techniques. Her classroom came into the discussion, and we talked about how she has

accepted that if a student is in their area, they can make a mess or do whatever they

need to do to calm themselves. As parents, many of us have sent our kids to their room

when we need them to reset or give us a chance to reset. This gave me an idea. Gia

does very well with her carrot ball, but she gets bored and then wanders. Ideally, some

sort of food hanging would keep Gia in place and still. However, due to her tie back

surgery, she cannot eat anything elevated. So, how could I give her a “safe space”?

I decided to stop overthinking things and try the easiest option first. Surprisingly, this

worked! Typically, when we have a horse tied in the crossties, we always want them

short so there is no slack. This is a safety issue as you do not want a horse getting

tangled or stepping on the crossties and panicking. However, I decided to give a long

crosstie a chance so Gia could reach the ground to play with her ball, but not wander.

As there is some risk in doing so, I only put her crossties down when I am there with her

and keep a close eye on her while I am grooming. This did seem to give her enough

space to move a little but kept reminding her to pay attention to her ball when she

couldn’t move too far. This worked all last week so we will keep working this way and

see if we can keep moving forward.


Finally, seeing as it’s Thanksgiving season, I want to add that I am so thankful for Gia.

She is truly an incredible horse. She challenges me, frustrates me, but most of all, she

loves me deeply. Gia has made me a better horse person and taught me to enjoy the

smallest of victories with the biggest of horses.

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