taking a hike with my new guy

 Meet Greni, an eight year old Icelandic on loan from a good friend from Naples. I decided to lease before buying, to see how I like having a horse around, how the goats like having a horse around, and how the horse likes it :) He's been here since July and we're having a blast! I do have training help from another local Icelandic owner, which took of a load of pressure since I've never owned a private horse, let alone trained a young one! But with a few hiccups and false starts we're doing great, we even attended an Icelandic Horse clinic with specialist Gudmar Peterson and have been on numerous trail rides with Cordy and her Lysingur.

The first two months or so I did not ride at all, all I did was ground work. Together with the books Joy and More Joy with Icelandics and Shari's training knowledge (she came to check Greni in the beginning to see what he needed help with) I came up with lots of exercises and games to establish a basic rapport. When Greni came he was about 1,030lbs (according to my weight tape) and very stiff, especially on the right side. So we did daily hikes when possible (I do have another "toddler" at home) interspersed with physical exercises to help loosen up (circles, backing up, circles while stepping under, backing up while stepping out, lots of cavaletti) and games to teach communication. I'm not going for mind numbing obedience, I don't mind my horse having an opinion and telling me, as long as when I decide my opinion matters he'll follow.

The first big hurdle was Greni's fear of passing cars, so I set up a lot of things to play with in the front yard to my husband's annoyance. Good thing we had a dry summer and he only had to mow there once! I learned that horse behavior in a group can be different from horse behavior alone, and Greni mimicked the herd's behavior for passing cars and was fine but needed to learn to look to me, trust me, when it was just the two of us. After five months most cars are mostly fine now (I used cookies and simple touching, not petting), tho we still do not ride/walk right next to the road but in a field with a fence and a ditch between us and the cars. Some days nothing will face him (three school busses in a row? with flashing lights? big whoop) other days a simple pick up truck with trailer sends him spinning... We'll just keep at it, and I'm sure with time, the good days will outweigh the funky ones!

It's funny, but having a young horse in my back yard showed me so many similarities between training a horse and raising a kid! Guess who put's his head under my arm pit and hides behind my back when another scary monster car comes by... or who does not want to be hugged in public, but suddenly asks for a reassurance hug when all those new impressions become to much... or who stands there, stomping his feet, because yesterday I got a cookie for this and now I demand another one... or who gets away with bad behavior and instead of being happy for not working becomes all grumpy and sour cause mama is not doing her job - and gets all happy again when I finally figure it out and call his bluff! Who knew there'd be sooo much character in such a fuzzy body :)