Weekend (pony) update!
Nov. 16th, 2025 02:24 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickToday it was brutally windy, like for real windy. Wind around 22mph, gusts up to 48 mph. This is "sheets of tin flapping in the breeze" amounts of wind. So of course we gathered up the ponies and went to work. (They did not come when called because we had JUST put fresh round bales in the field. Too busy eating round bale to come, so we went and got them.)
The ponies are aware of wind. They live mostly outside. I've seen them standing ass-to-the-wind and calmly munching round bale hay while the wind blows up their butts. There is absolutely no reason the ponies cannot be civilized, attentive, and productive when it's windy. And if they cannot manage their emotions in the wind, well, that is also an opportunity for learning. Zero fucks given over here, we're going to work with the ponies regardless of the weather conditions.
For their part, the ponies did not give two shits for the wind.
We went for a walk up over the hill (all the pears are gone) and down the other side to a place far away where we did all our rope work AWAY FROM HOME with only a little bit of nerves. (Little bit of nerves: Snap struggled on the walk part of the walk circles, took a couple of tries to settle down. Switch attempted to buck/canter her trot circle in the less-preferred direction. We had a chat and she did way better the next try. Neither pony was for-real bad, but they were a little nervous. It's normal for their performance to take a hit away from home, that's not unusual at all. But, they have to go away from "home" and do work away from "home" and that's just a part of pony life. You get better at doing the thing by, well, doing the thing. So we are practicing it. Also this is exposure for non-driveway rides.)
And we walked back to the pear tree and ALSO did the rope work there (way more calm than last time, almost a *whew* from the ponies to be back at the safe, familiar pear tree work area that they have seen exactly one time before). And then we went home and did mounting practice and driveway rides.
Mounting practice is now pony expected to hold herself still, rider does a couple of "corpse pose" mounts with extra flopping and wiggling nonsense from both sides (enough to sort of "shake" pony off balance and get her to take a few steps so that she can be bent-to-halt with the human-head-side rein). Once she bends to a halt, corpse gets off, much praise and petting. We're trying to build the concept of "It's ok if you are a little off balance for mounting or whatever, but be non-explosive and halt when you can" experience.
A pony who has only ever been mounted by a careful and gentle and steady person from the left side with competence is not a pony who is child safe. These ponies are mounted from both sides, kicked in the butt when the leg swings over, have the mounting bucket kicked under their feet, have the rider land "too far forward" or "too far back" (they're in bareback pads, there is a fair amount of comfortable surface we can work on) and then the rider has to "scooch" into the correct location, etc. If there's a way to fuck it up, we're going to fuck it up like that and the ponies are going to be expected to take it with aplomb. If they don't, we will fix that, too.
We do the "off balance" practice in corpse pose because it's easier to unbalance pony and safer for the corpse (who is literally there with feet approximately a foot and a half off the ground) if things go poorly. But, things do not go poorly because ponies are kind of aware of corpse pose and they're not real worried and they just take a couple of steps and grind to a halt... and that's 100% the correct answer.
And then we get on with a leg on each side and just sit there a bit, not asking pony to move off. Pony needs to know that it's OK to be mounted and then just... stand for a while. (Because ponies are for children. Because if you are ponying a pony with a child aboard, sometimes you have to get your own horse and your shit together and the child-pony pair has to hang out a bit while that happens. Best if they can hang out politely and quietly.) When rider is ready to move off, reins are gathered, rider sits up in a "going somewhere" kind of way, and pony is asked to walk on. The ponies know "walk on" and they've got it down.
Driveway ride was from the tack shed down to the logs in the driveway, plus a big circle left and a big circle right in the wide spot. And several halts and a back up. Still not trotting, but getting way better at stopping and turning. Walk is getting more confident.
We didn't play bridle today because it was already a pretty full day and had a lot of commotion (tractor putting hay in field, big white dog has returned from a summer at Lynn's house, and it was windy as hell). The ponies are sensible but also while I talk a good game about "oh, let them just work it the fuck out", I am also trying to keep the level of stimuli to what the ponies can handle successfully. If you've got strong wind and tractor and big dog, probably that isn't the day for adding "listen to bit and reins" to the driveway rides. Just DOING the driveway rides under more-stressful conditions is important, so that's what we did. Bridle and reins is coming, just not today.
The ponies are aware of wind. They live mostly outside. I've seen them standing ass-to-the-wind and calmly munching round bale hay while the wind blows up their butts. There is absolutely no reason the ponies cannot be civilized, attentive, and productive when it's windy. And if they cannot manage their emotions in the wind, well, that is also an opportunity for learning. Zero fucks given over here, we're going to work with the ponies regardless of the weather conditions.
For their part, the ponies did not give two shits for the wind.
We went for a walk up over the hill (all the pears are gone) and down the other side to a place far away where we did all our rope work AWAY FROM HOME with only a little bit of nerves. (Little bit of nerves: Snap struggled on the walk part of the walk circles, took a couple of tries to settle down. Switch attempted to buck/canter her trot circle in the less-preferred direction. We had a chat and she did way better the next try. Neither pony was for-real bad, but they were a little nervous. It's normal for their performance to take a hit away from home, that's not unusual at all. But, they have to go away from "home" and do work away from "home" and that's just a part of pony life. You get better at doing the thing by, well, doing the thing. So we are practicing it. Also this is exposure for non-driveway rides.)
And we walked back to the pear tree and ALSO did the rope work there (way more calm than last time, almost a *whew* from the ponies to be back at the safe, familiar pear tree work area that they have seen exactly one time before). And then we went home and did mounting practice and driveway rides.
Mounting practice is now pony expected to hold herself still, rider does a couple of "corpse pose" mounts with extra flopping and wiggling nonsense from both sides (enough to sort of "shake" pony off balance and get her to take a few steps so that she can be bent-to-halt with the human-head-side rein). Once she bends to a halt, corpse gets off, much praise and petting. We're trying to build the concept of "It's ok if you are a little off balance for mounting or whatever, but be non-explosive and halt when you can" experience.
A pony who has only ever been mounted by a careful and gentle and steady person from the left side with competence is not a pony who is child safe. These ponies are mounted from both sides, kicked in the butt when the leg swings over, have the mounting bucket kicked under their feet, have the rider land "too far forward" or "too far back" (they're in bareback pads, there is a fair amount of comfortable surface we can work on) and then the rider has to "scooch" into the correct location, etc. If there's a way to fuck it up, we're going to fuck it up like that and the ponies are going to be expected to take it with aplomb. If they don't, we will fix that, too.
We do the "off balance" practice in corpse pose because it's easier to unbalance pony and safer for the corpse (who is literally there with feet approximately a foot and a half off the ground) if things go poorly. But, things do not go poorly because ponies are kind of aware of corpse pose and they're not real worried and they just take a couple of steps and grind to a halt... and that's 100% the correct answer.
And then we get on with a leg on each side and just sit there a bit, not asking pony to move off. Pony needs to know that it's OK to be mounted and then just... stand for a while. (Because ponies are for children. Because if you are ponying a pony with a child aboard, sometimes you have to get your own horse and your shit together and the child-pony pair has to hang out a bit while that happens. Best if they can hang out politely and quietly.) When rider is ready to move off, reins are gathered, rider sits up in a "going somewhere" kind of way, and pony is asked to walk on. The ponies know "walk on" and they've got it down.
Driveway ride was from the tack shed down to the logs in the driveway, plus a big circle left and a big circle right in the wide spot. And several halts and a back up. Still not trotting, but getting way better at stopping and turning. Walk is getting more confident.
We didn't play bridle today because it was already a pretty full day and had a lot of commotion (tractor putting hay in field, big white dog has returned from a summer at Lynn's house, and it was windy as hell). The ponies are sensible but also while I talk a good game about "oh, let them just work it the fuck out", I am also trying to keep the level of stimuli to what the ponies can handle successfully. If you've got strong wind and tractor and big dog, probably that isn't the day for adding "listen to bit and reins" to the driveway rides. Just DOING the driveway rides under more-stressful conditions is important, so that's what we did. Bridle and reins is coming, just not today.
