dancing feet

Shyloh was a dancer today! She was dancing on her mat and dancing over ground poles! She makes me laugh!

First, I tacked Shy up and took her to the round pen where I had laid out some poles. I had a set of three and another set of two. I think I can see some improvement! She did a great job going over the poles! She seemed to me to be really lifting her legs and placing her feet well. I took video, but it was horrible, since I had the camera set on a stool outside the round pen. I can't even pull a good still from the video. You will just have to take my word that she looked good.

After I fed all the ponies, I pulled Shy out of her stall to do some clicker training. Fun stuff after the hard work of trotting over poles. I got out the mat to start with, but I forgot the clicker, (duh, most important part) so I went back to get it. I figured Shy would go roll or something in the few seconds that I took to retrieve it. 

Nope, she went straight to the mat. I missed the click! Fail on my part. I did a bunch of at liberty work with her and the mat. Shy kept dancing on the mat. I think she likes the noise her hooves make when they step on the wood. Either that or I am continuously clicking when she steps on the board and I need to be more mindful of that. But it sure looked like she was dancing! And sounded like she was tap dancing!

We did some backing, too. Shy did very well again. So I gave her a treat of some timothy pellets. Shy LOVES soaked timothy pellets. While I was soaking them, she did everything in her power to try and reach her bowl.

Over the stall guard. . .

Under the stall guard. . .

Success!

And, Kathy found a toad!

Yeah, I got peed on. .  .