#11

August 7

It has been hectic to say the least! I finally got to work with Missy again today. My Instructor decided to put a Western saddle on Missy so that all the creaking leather and flapping straps would help to get her comfortable with any tack we put on her. All was going really good until we got to the gate that led into the round pen. There was a big puddle of water in front of the gate on the inside and Missy didn't want to step in it so she got a little too close to the gate. The latch got caught on her back cinch and she absolutely freaked! She started panicking and bucking in place in an effort to free herself. After a little bit, the back cinch finally broke and she took off running to the other end of the indoor arena. My Instructor and I calmly tried to catch Missy and we finally did. The poor girl was so scared! I really felt bad for Missy. I walked her around to get her back to normal while my Instructor looked at the damage that Missy did to the gate. The gate was ruined, all bent out of shape, and one of the panels of the round pen had fallen down. My instructor hauled the battered gate out and brought a new one in. She put it in place and fixed the panel too. In about 15 minutes, we were ready to negotiate the gate again. We did a little approach and retreat and we eventually got safely through the gate with only a little bit of rushing. We worked on longing and transitions for a long while. We weren't going to work Missy real hard but our plan was kind of blown with the gate incident. Poor Missy was sweating before we even started working, well, the heat outside didn't help much either. After our longing exercises, we took one of the stirrups and kind of flapped it around, getting Missy used to the action. She was better on one side, but the side that she got hooked on the gate was pretty bad. She would take off running and we would ask her to lope for a while and then ask her to stop, once again going up and flapping a stirrup. Every time she would try to run off we would ask her to lope. That went on for a long time before she finally understood that she was supposed to stand still while we flapped the stirrups. She was soaking in sweat by the time we finished, but she had calmed down immensely and the stirrup flapping didn't bother her too much. We usually hose her off at the end of our sessions and today she actually enjoyed the cold water! We also gave her a liniment bath to help soothe her muscles. We figured she might have pulled something during the gate incident. Amazingly, she didn't have a scratch on her from that event. She even stood quietly for the fly spray and the sheet. She was so glad to have her scoop of grain at the end of the day!