Yay! Cows!
Aug. 29th, 2009 09:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
arwen_luneI went to a basic cow-work clinic today with Rowan. He tends to think cows are pretty scary, so I had no idea how it would turn out. My hopeful guess was that he would take his usual approach of shying back for ScaryThing and then immediately approach it again to research its scariness. And I was right, I took a few minutes to let him meet the cows through the fence of the pen, and he thought they were a bit scary but mostly very intriguing.
Once we actually started working under saddle, it took him a few moments to figure out that cows aren't solid objects, they'll move aside if you push. So a 'wall of cow' can be shouldered into without pain. Once that clicked, the lightbulb came on and he took to it really well, following the cow we picked, pressured it in the right ways without much direction from me, and generally displayed uncommon amounts of cow-sense for a horse not bred to work with cows. I suspect that working with the big blue ball has given him a bit of an insight into pushing something to get it to move. (will try to get some photos&vid of that, it's fun to watch) We had a blast.
(I look a bit awkward because I was trying to keep him off the cow a bit, he was getting overly enthusiastic!)
Once we actually started working under saddle, it took him a few moments to figure out that cows aren't solid objects, they'll move aside if you push. So a 'wall of cow' can be shouldered into without pain. Once that clicked, the lightbulb came on and he took to it really well, following the cow we picked, pressured it in the right ways without much direction from me, and generally displayed uncommon amounts of cow-sense for a horse not bred to work with cows. I suspect that working with the big blue ball has given him a bit of an insight into pushing something to get it to move. (will try to get some photos&vid of that, it's fun to watch) We had a blast.
(I look a bit awkward because I was trying to keep him off the cow a bit, he was getting overly enthusiastic!)
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Date: 2009-08-30 04:18 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-08-30 11:43 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2009-09-01 02:03 pm (UTC)No Im not calling you a horse, just merely indulging in your love for the large creatures *hug*