August 2008

Wednesday 27th August

Another nice day today so out I went and played with 4 of our horses. Solly came first though and he was very good. All the games went well, he played more confidently with the big ball, also stepped onto the hoola hoop without freaking out which was great.

Solly with the ball

Solly stepping onto the hoola hoop

He also remembered how to weave, we did it at walk just to reinforce what we did yesterday and then I went onto figure of eights around two cones in walk and trot online too.

Solly weaving at walk

I made sure that between every obstacle I had him circling whilst walking around, jumping jumps like the tyres, logs and the barrels. All of these he did very well and his circling is great now.

Jumping barrels

And last but not least he managed to go over the corner of the tarp without panicking. Yeehaa! ;-)

Sol and the tarp

Sunday 24th August

Today started fine so I jumped at the chance to play with Sol two days in a row, again using the patterns ideas. So I went into the play field and played friendly, yo-yo and circling. He jumped a low jump and circled whilst I walked along. He was also a bit curious of the tarp and jumped the tyres again. After doing some sideways I put a new pattern challenge to him, weaving in and out of 4 cones. He was pretty good at walk but a bit RB with trot so we stayed in walk until it really went well left and right. Then we did a bit of the pattern of figure of eight at walk and trot around two cones, this he has done before and finds okay now.


Then we arrive at the VERY LARGE green Parelli ball. He goes and sniffs it straight off without me prompting him which I'm very happy about. I then take the ball and put it into the 100' roundpen and squeeze Sol through the entrance too. But before we play with the ball he finds the hoola hoop which makes a noise like a rattle snake when moved about. He jumps about 2' into the air with all 4 feet like a large cat, I stay calm and just ask him to circle as normal and ignore the hoola hoop. He is a bit worried by it so I put the hoola hoop on the end of my savvy string/carrot stick and walk away with it for a while.

I only stop when he puts his nose or foot into the hoop so he learns that it's him that stops it moving! He learnt this very quickly and I move on to playing friendly with it on his body.

Sol being brave by putting his foot into the moving noisy hoola hoop



Playing friendly game with Sol and hoola hoop

After this goes really well we go and play with the ball. This goes better than I expected and Sol starts to lean on the ball with his nose, really sniffing it and also touching it with his front legs.

Sol sniffing PNH ball


Sol looking positively confident with the ball

I take this opportunity to play friendly with the ball over Sol's body. I'm not sure what to expect as it's a very LARGE ball but he does really well with it.

Sol with ball on right side



Sol with ball on left side

Next I go back down the play field doing the things we did earlier: sideways, weaving, figure of eights, jumping and circling whilst walking with squeezes here and there.

Sol getting to grips with weaving between cones

Sol jumping tyres again

Sol being braver with the tarpaulin

Sol taking most jumps in his stride now

Saturday 23rd August

Well again it's been a while since playing with Solly but he came and caught me well which was lovely. Since being back from this years Parelli Conference I've been watching and studying the new Patterns Packs which PNH brought out. It concentrates on doing patterns in all 4 of the Savvy's (online, liberty, freestyle & finesse) and it is good now that I can go through these any way I wish so I've decided to do them in order thereby getting Solly good online then liberty and so that our freestyle and finesse will follow on naturally.

So, today I put some of the patterns into practice. I did lots of circling, circling whilst moving about, jumping and squeezing over things. He was very sceptical of most things but it's been a while so I didn't take it personally.

Me circling Sol whilst standing on the scary tarp

I also practised change of direction at trot on the circle, went into sideways around the round pen, DHQ and sideways around the other one the other way which was pretty cool. Sol is getting much more confident about jumping things now which is cool too.

Sol just about to change direction...

...Sol changed direction and exhuberant with it ;-)

Sol does a fabulous jump over my loose tyre jump

Friday 15th August

Well it's been a while since I've been able to play with Solly. Firstly I went down to Birmingham to be a Volunteer at the Parelli 2008 Conference at the NEC, this took 6 days out from home but it was a fantastic experience and wonderful to see my mentors playing with some fab horses there.


So, today Solly caught me like he's really been missing me over the last couple of weeks. It was lovely to get a cuddle from him and he was very sweet. I haltered him and took him to our new playfield which I've finally put together properly. There is LOTS to play with: tyres, cones, tarpaulin, flags, trotting poles, 2 x roundpens, log jumps, cross jump, barrel jump and for a short while I also have a VERY LARGE green Parelli play ball which Mark Weiler (President of Parelli) gave to Savvy Scotland at the Conference and which I'm very proud to have.

Solly hasn't been in the playfield since I've got it organised so it was quite a surprise for him to see all the obstacles in it. We firstly just played 'put your nose on things' to help him get braver with the new surroundings as I know he can be unconfident with new things and new environments. He was quite shy of a few things like the ball, the tarp, the jumps and the flags so I took the time to settle him down and then we played more with specific things.

Sol trying to be brave with the tarp

First we played with the cross jump and flags which he was very spooked about. Then we played a bit with the tarp and left that when he'd sniffed it. Next we played with the barrel and log jumps which went pretty well. After that we went and did some sideways around the roundpens and ended up near the large play ball. His head was very high trying to suss that out but was brave enough to touch it.

Sol touching the ball

Moving on we went and played around the tyres which I've put up as a jump. He wasn't too bad with this but still needed some time to get the confidence to touch them.

Sol touching tyre jump

I then made a game of going between the tyre obstacle and the tarp and moved from one to the other. After doing this for only a short time he managed to get the courage to jump the tyre jump (which amazed me) and also jump the corner of the tarp. So then I stayed with the tarp until he could walk calmly over the tarp which didnt' take long at all. He's such a clever boy, finds things quite frightening to start with but really learns quickly if just given the time to sort things out in his mind first.

Sol getting braver with the tarp

Sol just before jumping the tyres