Hey Mate!

Recently, Pony Girl took me on a little trip. A trip to see the one and only, Clinton Anderson. I have always loved Clinton and have used some of his methods in training Brandy. This clinic came at a great time, since I have started doing some serious ground work with Fritzy. I was very excited to watch, listen and learn all I could. What was really great, was that he worked with a 10 yr old QH mare, that had a personality like Fritzy's. I tried soaking everything in the best I could. I like to actually see someone work with a horse, while explaining what they are doing and than seeing the results. This is how I learn more about training.

The QH below is the one Clinton did a lot of ground work with. He than also rode this mare. This is also the mare that is the same age as Fritzy, and has a lot of her personality traits.



I am not going to get into all the details about what he talked about, and what he did to get the horses to do what he asked them to do. I think every one who knows Clinton, knows his methods.



What I really loved, was his humor. He made it fun. We laughed alot! There were alot of giveaways, unfortunately my sis and I weren't picked to win any. I tried making my sis get up, and jump up and down so Clinton would notice her, and pick her to answer a question. I think she jumped up once. He seemed to pick the loudest person in the crowd.

At the end of the day, he worked with a horse that would not load in a trailer. The next series of pictures is of him making fun of people and how some try to get their horses to load. It was hilarious. Just watching this little mare so terrified of the trailer, and than wanting to be nowhere else but in the trailer was amazing. Sorry for the poor picture quality. I haven't figured out all the settings on my camera and I also had to zoom in quite a bit.











Clinton did not fall here, it was planned.



What do we have here? Yes, this is Pony Girl, Clinton Anderson and Paint Girl!



I have to thank my sis for taking me to this clinic. I loved it. I bought Fritzy a pretty pink rope halter, 23' pink lead, and my sister bought me a pink handy stick! I am a big pink girl. I love pink. So this will just add to my collection of pink for my horses!

Today I went out to work with Fritzy again on ground work. She had 2 weeks off, due to my elbow injury, which is now healed, and to being a very busy bee last week! I had great improvement using Clinton methods. I think from what I was doing before, which is very similiar to what Clinton does, and applying Clinton methods today, really helped her understand what I was asking her to do. I had her backing away from me, not perfectly, but she is backing away! I also had her sidepassing from the ground so much easier, even though we hit the brick wall again sidepassing to the left. But it didn't take as long to get her to move away from the pressure. This will be the most challenging part, getting her to move! I will be working with her everyday this week, and I am looking so forward to it. I really think this will help with her pushy attitude!



Since my Fritzy girl was so good today, I took her out to the grass field to graze.



After I fed the horses, I went into the garage to feed the crazy Aussie's. We keep their food in a metal garbage can. I went to take the lid off and started screaming. My OH asked what was wrong. I realized what I was screaming at, nope, not a spider. Whew! I took the lid off the garbage can and carried it over to my OH. I made him hold it while I ran into the kitchen to grab my camera. I have been talking about trying to get a picture of this very elusive animal around here. Well, it came to me! This little guy was camping out in my garage, on top of my dog food garbage can lid! Ain't he cute?



I took him out to the stream to release him back into the wild. Hopefully he can find his mate!



Here he is, free at last! Isn't he cute? I can't believe I screamed at him! I just adore frogs!