Goodbye Arena, Hello Round Pen!

I finally had time to take my arena panels apart and make a round pen. I really needed to do that to have a smaller area to work with that silly Mustang of mine. Once we got the round pen set up, I went to go get Chance. She hadn't been handled in a month, due to me being out of town for so long. So I was really wondering how she would act when I brought her out. She acted up just a little when I first got her out of the pasture. She got in trouble, then was fine leading to the round pen.

Once we got to the round pen, I decided I would just turn her loose and let her get used to the new shape. I have turned her out in the arena a couple times before, but all she wanted to do was eat the grass in the corners.




This time I left the round pen once I set her free, I didn't want to get in her way, and the last time I had let her loose in the arena, she kept running at me. So I thought it would be better to watch her from the outside.



It wasn't long before she decided to run and play. She had us laughing so hard.



I think I missed all the really good moves she did, but at least I was able to get some action pictures.



I bet it felt really good for her to be able to run and play out of the mud.



She would get so close to the fence and buck. I was afraid that she would kick the panels.



She loves to run with her head held high in the air!



Then it was time to get to some serious work. I went in and caught her. I did my Clinton Anderson handy stick work with her. I can fling that whip all over her body, under her belly, around her legs and she doesn't even flinch. Exactly how she is supposed to respond.



I always do this on both sides.



After that lesson, I decided I would teach her how to lunge. We are already lunging the yearlings at work. I am not a big fan of lunging babies, BUT I do believe that they need to learn to lunge. I did start off with my 12' lead. I forgot my lunge line, and my round pen is quite a distance from my "tack room".



I know that some of the yearlings at the farm I work at are not lunging very well. It could be the person that was teaching them, or they just aren't getting it. I think it was the person that was teaching them. I was very curious how things would go with Chance.



At first she didn't quite understand. I mean we spend all that time training them to walk right next to us, now why would we want them to walk away from us, still on a line? But after a few taps with my handy stick, she had that "a-ha" moment.



"Oh, this is what I am supposed to do!"



Since I only had her on the 12' lead, I just walked big circles so she was actually lunging in a bigger area. I eventually had her trot and canter. She only pulled away a couple times, and she tried to switch directions once, I got after her, and she didn't try that again.



After a successful first direction, I said "whoa", not expecting her to stop because this is the first time lunging her. I guess I didn't take into consideration that I use whoa a lot in my training, and this Mustang knows whoa! She immediately stopped and faced me the first time I said whoa. WOW! I then switched directions. I thought I would have to start over going the other way, but nope, she knew exactly what she should be doing. Once she was going around nicely, I said whoa again, she stopped immediately, turned in and faced me.



I would have to say that our first lunging training session went extremely well. I am very impressed with how well she did, especially with having a month off! Maybe she needed that month!

I even decided to use the paste dewormer on her for the first time. I had been using the pellet dewormer, but I really wanted to get her on the paste dewormer. She wanted to eat the whole tube. Chance is so accepting of most new things, and I think she is going to make the training process so simple for me. She probably could train herself, seriously!