Preparation for Clinic

Today it is get prepared to TRAILER to the clinc with Fiona. We did Touch It on the trailer. Nose first...she blew by that and put her feet on it. Good girl. I'm impressed by her as she loves to put her feet on things.

Remember, one of the last times we trailered it was a horrible wreck (she FREAKED out in the trailer and hurt herself coming down the ramp) so my focus has been "stand in the trailer calmly."

We did approach and retreat (it was not a bad reaction at all, but I wanted her to keep her confidence the WHOLE TIME). Stand on ramp. Graze. Ramp again, let's go forward. Retreat. graze.

Nose in trailer. If she leaned towards, I left her alone and it was hard to be in neutral. In my head I kept hearing Pat say "she has to act like a partner. Quit micromanaging." How did he get in my head?

Anyway, I just STOOD in neutral unless she leaned back or took a step back. It WORKED! She loaded herself essentially and most of what I did was just support backwards movement with a tiny stick wave. It only took tiny movements. This is big.

SUCCESS.

O'Rion and Exy began snorting and farting, running along the fence to our back with the dogs barking, this made her lose confidence, so I took her away from trailer and did S Bends and then finally falling leaf. She looked at me as leader, we returned to trailer and did beautifully with them in the background. It's not about the herd. She kept asking questions this whole time and I was pumped. VERY nice for her and not her norm.

So then I showed her all the doors and things and did friendly on the closing mechanism. Stroked the sides of the trailer, stroked the gate, stroked the partitians in the trailer with her watching, thought loudly :) Good Trailer, Good sides, Good door, Rattled it in front of her...showed her how things worked.

She asked LOTS of questions and seemed engaged the whole time. It was lovely.

We loaded again and I closed the gate partway then she tried to come out. I let her. Rinse, repeat. got it closed and asked her to stay on when she moved to come out. Very gently tapped on her HQ with stick. She took the suggestion and stayed. Gate closed briefly and then I invited her out. Nice expression at end of session and I called it a a day. I figured we'd build on that and I'd ask her to stay in with gates closed next session, then a short ride.

I feel really good about how it went.

Albert came home so that cut short our grazing session I had planned. I had to talk to him about a project we're working on, but grazing will take priority next session.

:)