It didn’t seem to matter much because the training progressed pretty good without the lead rope. I could pick up all her feet, stroke her all over, brut her (fly repellant), put saddles on her. She came whenever I called her and followed me wherever I went. We were pretty much ready for the next phase when she charged our dog a couple of times and so we decided to keep him out of the yard. Then out of the blue she charged me when I asked her to move from one paddock to another.
We had noticed that after five months Brandy still seemed to over react quite a bit to many things. Like for instance when the whirring sound of the council’s new fangled street cleaner water spouts reached Brandy’s ears, her kicks and bucks went on and on and on. Mum said, “She just doesn’t let up. All her responses seem so out of whack to whatever is going on. Especially now after five months. Just cool it already, that dog was here well before you, he’s never even barked at you, we kept him on the lead because of you and now you’re spinning out of control because we’re walking him on the lead all the way across the yard? What the?”
All of a sudden Baileys our mini stallion who has been head over heels all the while, is kicking at Brandy. That’s new; he’s never before lashed out at her. It seems that he also has enough of her antics.
We can’t make head or tails of it. So the next day we’re on the phone for an assessment and are told that she’s greener than our grass. This is after a good solid 5 ½ months of very intermittent training. Uummpphh.
This is despite the fact that I can pretty much do whatever and she is OK with it .. most the time ..
OK, I hear you .. not solid. I knew that, I was working towards it, but trickey without being able to clip her on.
We’re not sure if this is what happened but piecing all the bits together it appears that even though Brandy was coming along nicely and doing all the right things .. most of the time. She was not behaving all the time. And the more pressure I put on, the more she baulked and eventually she must have decided that it was time to have it out with me.
It’s kind of fun to think that this is why Baileys had a go at her a number of times but truth be known he probably had reasons all of his own.
I was acutely aware that I had to get the training more solid but felt that this would come in time and felt very close to being able to naturally clip her on without a hassle.
We had considered but not executed to build a little pen to facilitate the clipping on but realistically she just goes beserko at a moments notice if she feels challenged and my pen building skills aren’t such that they would keep her in guaranteed wholly undamaged.
Yes, I know, a round yard would have been handy. Surplus panels anyone?
