January 14, 2011 - A demanding day

Totyo and Rory having a snooze

I brought Rory in today and rasped his feet before grooming and tacking up.  He didn't need much more than rolling the edges of his hooves but he was less than cooperative at first.  A couple of times he threatened to lie down, but gave up on the idea when I didn't let go of the foot I was holding.  Once Rory realized I wasn't going to put up with his wiggles and objections he stopped trying to take his feet away from me.

I gave him a quick grooming and saddled up.  We went out to the arena for another longe lesson.  Rory was a little full of energy today.  I made the mistake of giving him a few more feet of longe line and he wasn't as attentive.  Halt was not working, and with the extra distance from me Rory paid more attention to Totyo's whinnies.  The snow on the arena roof was periodically sliding off and the noise startled Rory.  Several times he tried to bolt, but I managed to bring him back to a walk without too much trouble.  Once I realized I'd given him more line I brought him back to about eleven feet again and ran through the walk, out, trot, halt commands again with very good response from Rory.  At the end another load of snow slid off the roof as I was switching the longe line to a different ring on his halter.  Rory saw the shadow slide that time and stood still as he watched it go.

On the way out of the arena I looked at the clock and realized that with all the activities today I'd had Rory paying attention for almost two hours.  None of it was difficult or very new for Rory, but it was a long stretch of time for him to be behaving himself and he had been very good.  He was happy to get back outside.