Gia - sessions 1184-1187 - Progress and Discovering New Work

Monday December 8th thru Saturday December 13th, with Danielle:

The past few weeks and months, you’ve heard a lot about Gia’s grooming. However, there are a lot of things Heather would like to see Gia do better with on the ground. We strongly believe in the idea that a good ride starts with a good experience on the ground. Boundaries, expectations, and moods don’t begin when you sit in the saddle. This applies to all horses, but some more than others. Gia is definitely a horse where every relationship and interaction has a significant impact.

On Monday, I began by working with Gia on her grooming. She was pretty well behaved for all of this and has settled into a routine. However, I don’t think she’s quite ready to turn over to everyone for grooming yet. There are still a few little nuances, particularly with her hind feet, that I want to work through first. So, as I do this, I am also moving forward with the next step of her grooming: saddling. Saddling has not been a major issue of hers, but it has been quite some time since she’s had to work and she can be a

bit lazy (I know there are people that won’t believe that, but she’s usually a kick ride!) Well, when I approached with the saddle pad, I was paying close attention to Gia’s body language. A bit surprisingly, she pinned her ears as I approached holding the pad. That was my sign to stop and slow it WAY down. I allowed her to process the saddle pad and relax. I only moved forward with putting it on her back once she relaxed. We did that off/on/off/on 3 times. Tuesday was similar in all her reactions, so the work remained consistent. 

On Wednesday, Gia was more cooperative and did not seem to mind the saddle pad, at all. I had done nothing differently with her than I had in the prior days, but she allowed me to put the saddle pad on and off 3 times without any negative reactions. Since the saddle pad has proven itself to be a trigger, I want 3 days like this before I will move forward to the next step. I was quite pleased with her attitude on Wednesday.

On Friday, Gia came in and was acting quite interested in what everyone was doing. We are beginning to see more of her typical curious, snuggly behavior reemerging and that is exciting. It shows she is letting her guard down in the barn rather than being on high alert. She was okay with grooming, perhaps a bit more wiggly, but definitely better than she had been. She was tossing her carrot ball around a lot and I had to stop and help her get it back. I think she may have been playing fetch with me. (I’m a well trained groom) When I got to the saddle pad, she definitely had her feelings back about it. We eventually got three signs of relaxation but I didn’t actually end up putting the saddle pad on her. As soon as I approached and she tensed up, I would stop. After she relaxed, she would turn and touch either my arm or the sniff the saddle pad. Once she did that, I stepped away and gave her a break. I don’t view this as a step backwards, at all. I met Gia in the middle. I did not back away entirely from the saddle pad. She had to work through her feelings. However, I did not push her too far. The goal was never to saddle her up and work so why push it? There will be times when we have to do what needs to be done and there will be times when we can work on building her tolerance. 

An additional bonus this week: Saturday. I typically feed the horses on Saturday evenings. Usually, we have two feeders on a shift and blanketing Gia requires one person to hold her and one to put on the blanket. I feed by myself so I blanket and unblanket her typically solo. This isn’t usually a problem as I do halter her, and she is generally tolerant of me. (It is a long way up for the blanket though) As an added complication this week, we were in the dark…literally. Heather was having a new arena light installed and thus, all power to the arena was turned off. I was working with a headlamp, but the bright light is blinding and confusing to the horses, so I do try to tone it down when I’m with them. Remember, horses react first when scared! Well, of course despite warmer weather, we were forecasted to have rain, so Gia needed to be “changed” from her flysheet to the blanket. As I had quite a few other things to do before I could feed her field, it was very dark and the electrician was working on the pole right above her field, so the girls were a bit on edge. I took Gia into the arena to blanket as I didn’t want to end up between the feet of the mean girls. (Nickname for their field, from the movie) Despite the fact it was later than she was used to being fed, completely dark, and a strange man climbing, screwing, and dropping things, she was very well behaved. I did have to remind Gia to pay attention to me and gave her a few “quit” commands, but she honestly did better than I thought she would. I had planned to take her into the crossties, where we did have light if necessary. However, we didn’t have to do that at all! I was proud of her for being brave.

--Danielle