RBE Arena Play

Beautiful day today. Finally able to do some constructive things with Wyatt and Lady, now that we have moved. First off, get Lady used to the quonset hut arena. It has a big overhead garage door, then regular doors along one side. And then some really weird sliding door that most people and horses enter through when it's cold.

So I put the horses in the arena and they both trot around a bit. Lady, wild-eyed, more like bounces around, with her typical snort and blow routine, then takes off across the arena to the south gate, throwing in a frisky buck and fart for good measure. I just walk in circles ignoring them, take my lunge whip and start tapping different surfaces in the arena, like the sliding metal door, then slide it open and closed open and closed, open and closed, and don't stop until Lady gets calmer. Then I get my carrot stick and tie a plastic bag on it and do the same thing all over the arena as well as smacking it on the ground, on objects, on myself. By this time Wyatt 's gone to find a safe corner to stand in, trying to be invisible; he's really good at invisible horse, you know. He hates Parelli games. To him, it's like going back to kindergarten. It's insulting. He's a solid citizen and has no tolerance for them thar rope-wigglers. How he can see the color orange is beyond me, though. They say if you lose one of your senses, the other's get better. Well, he is blind in one eye. Go figure. Anyway, the next step for me is to go to the other end of the arena and abruptly open the little entrance door, go out and in, out and in, opening and shutting, about a hundred times, shouting, Hey! Hel-lo, Hey! Hah! By about the hundreth (I'm exaggerating ) time, Lady has lost her concern and wants in on the game. I mean, if there is something so great about that door that has me fascinated, why, she'd better go over and check it out. So she comes over flipping her forelock to the side and asks in her Scarlett O'Hara way, "what-eva in the world are ya doin by that little ole do-ah? Why, is there any Cay-un-dee involved? 'cause you know how much I just Love, CAY-UN-DEE!" Success! I was glad too because I was getting tired of the whole thing. I was prepared for someone to come running, saying, "need some help? You ok in there?" Which I have to add happens a lot whenever I'm wigglin' ropes and flapping my arms, but never if I'm wrestling around fifty pound bags of grain, or the wheelbarrow's stuck in the mud. No, never then.

Now what Lady and Wyatt could have used today was a good run, round and round the arena. They hadn't been out for the last few days, due to flooded, mushy brown gooky pastures, and Lady's got some real pent up energy to blow off in her RBE way. I didn't want Lady to associate the arena with running around in a panic every time we go in there, though, so after the "sacking out" session, I just walked around and mirrored her, matching her energy every time the tractor started up in the distance, or the bird flew by--but her reactions were very low key thanks to the above session, so I didn't have to do a lot of trotting and loping around--Whew! glad for that, cause I'm really out of shape. It took a very short time before she hooked on and started following me around, looking for scratches and rubs. We played a little touch it game for a while and ended by hanging out by the gate, where Wyatt decided it was finally ok to come clomping on over. We all just stood there then, the little tri-herd of us, licking, chewing, breathing slow and easy and looking out into the afternoon sunshine, content.