Tuesday, September 06, 2011

Since it was a cooler afternoon today, I decided to start working the fillies a little earlier this afternoon. I brought Julie and Snippy into the round pen and caught Julie. We reviewed a lot of things and then I got the clippers out. I clipped her bridle path for her. She was a little nervous at first but she settled right down and let me do my job. I then ground drove her in the rope bosal and the in the snaffle bit. She is doing well. The more I work with her the more I like her.

Then I moved to Snippy. I tried working with her without restraining her but she kept throwing her head away from me. She is very protective of her head especially  her nose. Since we weren't making any progress like this I decided to go old school on her and I roped her. After a bit of discussion she finally learned it didn't do any good to try and run away from me in the round pen while wearing a rope. Every time I tried to halter her she would throw her nose away from me so I made a loop in my lariat and used it as halter for a while. Finally I managed to get a regular halter on her and a 16 foot lead rope, She really didn't like that halter putting pressure on her face and she let me know about it. When the dust finally settled and she had been thrown a couple of times, I started to lead to the hip to get her feet moving. She finally figured what I was asking for and started to work with me. I then started leading her in a circle and she got to be fairly decent for her first time. I had a phone call come in so I leaned against Snippy and she stood there like a broke horse the whole time I was on the phone. I was impressed with her. we worked with the flags for a bit and that livened her up. She was still very protective of her head but finally got to the point she would accept the flag running down her face. I thought maybe the feedbag trick might make her a little less nervous about my handling her face so I got a couple of bags out, put in some feed, slipped them on the girls. Snippy wasn't too sure about this whole deal but seemed to like the idea of some feed. Everything was going fine until I went to take her feedbag off of her. She jerked away from me and since we had already spent most of the afternoon working on her handling and with me rubbing her face and nose, I proceeded to catch her again and since she wanted to keep jerking away I lounged her for a bit. I then lead her around some more before I turned her loose. Since she is being such a pain about her face I decided I would do something I seldom do, I left the halter on her for this evening. I don't know why Snippy is so protective of her nose and face but I have been rubbing her and trying to get her used to being handled. Also noticed that when the rope slipped behind her one time she kicked and bucked a bit so I will have to watch that for a while. Snippy is a much different critter than Julie or Sweetie but I think she will be fine with a little handling.