Gia - sessions 1246-1249 - Gia's getting back in the groove!

This week was an exciting one for Gia. It has been the first week where everything went according to plan in a long time!

Monday April 13th-On Monday, Ashley started grooming Gia. She was particularly good. After her grooming, I began working on her stretches. One of Gia's stretches is a belly lift. I must run my finger, or an instrument like a hoof pick or a comb, along the underside of Gia's belly encouraging her to lift her back. At first, she was a bit jumpy and picked up her foot. As soon as I told her to put it down, she obliged and realized what we were doing. These stretches are not new to her, but it has been a while since we have used them. I suspect she will get reaccustomed to them very quickly. After her stretches were complete, I worked on the saddle, for which she was very well behaved. I took her out into the arena next to do her rehab ride of 5 minutes of walk. For whatever reason, she was quite tense and anxious when I got on her. I started off taking her in a very small serpentine pattern and encouraging her to walk on if she wanted to stop. She did quite a bit of swishing her tail and trying to put her head down, which tend to be precursors to naughty behavior. I was able to get her out of this funk, and in a minute or so we were able to resume our 10m half circles. By the end of the ride, she was much more relaxed and obedient.

Tuesday April 14th-Tuesday, Mariana groomed Gia. Following that, I did her scratches and saddling. She wasn't quite as well behaved on Tuesday for the saddle as she was on Monday. I did have to remind her to put her foot down a few times. I was expecting that we might have another tense start to our ride. But as is the case often with Gia, you should only expect the unexpected. As soon as I got on her on Tuesday, she was very relaxed. If anything, she was a bit pokey. I was able to really work on her moving her shoulder over through turns. I did notice that she is having a harder time moving her left shoulder in. Generally speaking, Gia tends to be stiff on the right. I did notice while I have been doing her SI stretches that she is stiff in her right hip. Luckily, Gia has a chiropractic appointment next week and he will get that sorted out if it's still sore. This isn't a new area of concern. It tends to be common for her. I can only guess that she tweaked something while she was horsing around (haha) in the field! Despite this, Gia did a very good job of listening for her entire ride!

Wednesday April 15th-Wednesday, was a bit different. I did all of Gia’s grooming, stretches, and saddling. I intentionally did things differently than I normally do and while Gia seemed confused, she did not do anything naughty. I will say by paying attention to this it is funny how methodical and structured my grooming routine is. Under saddle, she was a bit more nervous to start. Due to Heather's injury, there is a chair in the arena that is a bit different. It has been there for a couple weeks now. Gia has walked past it many times. However, she was acting a bit spooked by it on Wednesday. Additionally, once Gia got it in her mind to be looking at things, she also noticed a couple new jump fillers that are outside of the ring. I took the time with her and encouraged her to stay focused on me and to work past the things that she found scary. Eventually, we were able to expand our work further around the ring. By the end of our six-minute walk, Gia and I made it around the entire arena!

Friday April 17th- Friday, Chloe brought Gia in and she noticed that she was looking at the chair sideways again. I instructed her to take Gia back out to the ring and approach the chair. She stayed there and let Gia look at it and process it and then gave her a treat when she voluntarily touched the chair. Gia knows this exercise very well as it is our standard go-to with her and we have done it hundreds of times while working to desensitize G to certain things. After that, she did very well for her grooming, stretches, and saddling! When I got on her, she was a little concerned with Eric who was moving some branches out of the front yard. But she continued to pay attention to me and do her work. I kept her focused on me by doing a variety of shapes and figures and walking her over poles. Once she settled in, she did a fantastic job following all my directions. We made it up to 7 minutes at the walk today!

This was a wonderful week of progress, and I think Gia is almost ready for the grooms to begin saddling her again! Stay tuned for next week's blog to see if I spoke too soon And Gia has the last laugh!