Today was our first lesson since I've had Louie at the barn. When I was leading him up to the barn, about half way, he planted his feet and didn't want to move. He now knows the barn means work. It only took a second to get him going again and I was now aware of his feelings on the subject. No one was using the arena so I took Louie in and just turned him loose so he could just do his own thing and have a little fun in the arena. And fun he did have. He ran, and bucked and played. He did the big moose trot all over that arena and let out big deep belly snorts. Then rolled a few times. After that he just came to me in the middle of the arena and when I walked off he followed right at my shoulder.
He was quiet on the cross ties for grooming and saddling. Three people came into the barn, a woman with two pre-teen kids. They walked by Louie. Once by him,the woman stopped, spun around and said, "Is that a mule?" I told her yes and she then made the typical statement of, "I didn't think mules got this big." And I explained they come in all the same size, shapes and colors a horse does. She came back and loved on Louie which he soaked up like a sponge. And when I walked away and Louie honked for me, I heard her laugh and say that she just loved the sound of that. The young boy called Louie a donkey once but the woman quickly corrected him.
I took Louie into the arena and lunged him just a little bit. He's already gotten all the silliness out of his system when I turned him loose in there so he was all settled down already. Then the lesson began. Poor Louie! He already doesn't know anything and I sure do my best to keep him confused. You just don't realized how many wrong things you are doing until someone is watching you. I constantly keep holding my right rein shorter and tighter but I can't feel or tell that I am doing this. "stop pulling, stop leaning forward, stop slouching, stop, stop, stop" AGH! And I kept doing something that Louie interpreted as being asked to canter. And he definitely thought he was being asked as he was not excited and speeding up. But, he would break into the most beautiful, slow, 3 beat western lope. And I kept having to check him back to a trot because I was not asking for the lope. Then when I wanted him to lope, he didn't get it. And after all, I'd just keep telling him not to lope (cause I hadn't asked for it...) He actually did quite well going counter clock wise picking up the canter on the correct lead. But, he was picking up the wrong lead sometimes going clockwise. And at one point when I asked for the canter and he picked up the wrong lead, and I checked him back to a trot and asked again, and again got the wrong lead, checked back and asked again..........He was just confused and told me enough was enough and headed out of the arena. He set that head and off he went. The arena door was open unfortunately. I was able to turn him just before he went out. The instructor shut the door to take that distraction away. She then had me ask him one more time for the canter on the correct lead going clockwise. He did get it and we managed most of a circle. We were only 1/2 into our 1 hr. lesson but Wendy declared the she thought Louie had had enough for one day and that we should end on that good note. I completely agreed with her. Louie and I were both tired and sweaty from just the 1/2 of steady work.
It was a good lesson. But I need to really work on myself and what I'm doing so I don't confuse Louie so much.
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