Feeling a bit more relaxed and confident when I worked her today. Had a nice group of friends out to watch, but I just ignored their questions and focused on getting a good work session in. Things went well.
I started out with some strong lunging in both directions. Canter is difficult to get--I could only get up to 1/2 of the round pen in canter. But I wanted her to look forward to resting in the middle today. After some strong turns on the rail, I started dividing the pen and doing lots of turns. I worked up to sending her between me and the spectators, where I had also hung my saddle on the rails. She was getting very soft in this, although she could run around behind me and get sticky. But it was pretty good. I was using the stick and string for this.
In the middle I ran through all the toys for desensitizing and added the lead rope today. I could throw the lead rope all over her body, rump, and all 4 legs. This is real progress. She accepted the bag well on the face and I moved on to a rolled-up saddle pad. I was able to rub this on her face and then use my hands, which was basically the first time I could rub her well on her head. It was easy to keep her head tipped towards me and her poll was probably 10" lower today than when I did this yesterday.
I quit on a good note and gave her 30 minutes to relax. I repeated the same progression and did not do as well. She made it difficult for me to stay next to her shoulder this time and kept turning towards me with a high head. She also nipped a few times at my arm, which she first showed in the earlier session. I did some lunging for respect with the rollbacks in preparation to help this issue. Some of the rollback were very pretty and soft, but one side was better than the other. I want to work up to backing very soon to address this nipping problem.
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