Monday, November 19, 2007

Some good signs

I had a lovely day with Lutine yesterday. We spent a couple of hours re-learning about trailer loading - she was a doll about it. She wasn't too confident about going in at first so we worked at increasing her confidence bit by bit with two or three sessions during the day. Eventually we got to where she was perfect going up the ramp and standing inside while I took down the front bar and then led her out through the front ramp. Over the next few sessions we will cement this and then progress to having someone put up the bar at the back, then having the front down and so on... all until she's happy going in and standing in there with a haynet for 15 or 20 minutes at a time and then we can think about starting to take some little trips. I don't think it will take long. The main obstacle is getting organised and hooking the trailer to the 4x4 regularly so we can practise.

Then a lovely thing happened. I went down in the field to take down the last bit of strip grazing fence and open up the last corner of what is now pretty brown, dry grass. The horses always get a bit excited at the sight of strip grazing fencing coming down so they all raced down after me. Lutine also saw and set off at a trot down hill, no trace of lameness even on the slope and then she picked up a canter on the left lead and cantered down the hill all the way to the bottom. Her left foreleg is the one she was always 'off' on, the one that seems to have had the damage/problem, and she habitually always picked up right canter and never down hill as that put additional pressure on the joints. Anyway, there she was, sprinting down the steepest part of the hill on her 'bad leg'. I wish I'd had my camera with me - but that's always the way it goes. Missing the camera when you most wish you had it.

2 Comments:

Blogger Muriel said...

I am glad to hear that Lutine is much better ;-)

Nice to hear about your trailer-training ... taht should be next on my buying list a trailer .. then teaching Linda ...

9:07 AM  
Blogger Lulu's friend said...

Hi Muriel,

You will need a much bigger trailer for Princess Linda! I was lucky that Lutine will just about fit into the smaller size trailer for 'regular' horses. I will look forward to photos of her.

7:13 PM  

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