My husband made me a nice little riding ring a few years ago. There's a hedgerow on each long side. At one end is a little pond and at the other end there is a stand of large fir trees and a small "meadow" which we usually don't mow - it's hard to get the tractor in and out of there. We recently discovered that a doe has taken up residence in that little protected meadow and she's raising two fawns there! They often come out to romp around in my riding ring and we watch them from the hallway window. Needless to say, I'm not going to go down there and disturb them so I had to find some place else to ride and play clicker games. John recently mowed down the big pasture beside the barn, turning it into a perfect play area for Split and me! Mowed down, however, does not equal NO GRASS so of course the first thing Split did when we went out there on Monday was declare, "Yeehaw! More grazing time!" Umm.......no. He's very good a lungeing (because of the temptation of the grass, he was wearing his halter and lunge line) so I thought, "Why not start with something easy?" I figured that would let him know that we were "working" and not "eating!" Good old Splitter. He was like, "Ok. Whatever you want." He walked and trotted and whoa'd like the prince that he is and accepted his treats nicely. But one time when I stopped and clicked him, he quickly reached down to scratch his front leg and discovered that (gasp!) his nose was touching the grass! He quickly snatched 2 mouthfuls. I laughed and said, "Well, I guess that's your treat then!" From then on, every time I clicked Split, he put his head down and grabbed 2 mouthfuls of grass!! He never tried to get more.........He was happy to do that as his treat! What a hoot!
I've learned to let go of that "oh, no ya don't!" attitude (for the most part! LOL) and am much more willing to let my animals be part of the decision making team. I'm always surprised, too, at how intelligent their decisions are!! I don't know why I'm surprised.......
they're often much smarter than I am! Letting Split take those 2 mouthfuls of grass and turning it into a positive rather than a negative allowed him to get the extra grass he wanted and we had a nice play session! When you have animals, that old adage, "Ya learn something new every day" really hits home!
A woman needs two animals - the horse of her dreams and a jackass to pay for it.
Author Unknown
My daughter gave me that quote on a plaque for Christmas. I display it proudly in my dining room.......
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