Romeo, My Romeo...

We went Rossy's last night to ride and show a horse to Kelsey, Rossy's daughter. I rode Badger for the first time since we had his hock injected. I long trotted him a while then loped him in the arena before taking him around the barrrels. He felt normal...which was great! I decided to trot him around the barrels first to see if he was going to limp. No problems...so I loped him around the barrels and he did GREAT! He got down and really turned the barrels hard, which is hard to do at a lope cause there is minimal momentum. I was so thrilled to have my boy feeling better again! I loped a couple of more times and called it a night. He wasn't dropping his shoulder and he was working really nice. I'm learning him and learning to read him. I now know, if he drops his shoulder he's starting to hurt.

After that, I rode Romeo. This was his first time outside of a fenced in area. (Rossy's arena is not fenced off.) He was a little more squirrely, but worked VERY nicely. I am working on working in a nice circle and going in a straight line. (Young horses tend to do the 'drunk' swagger until they learn what they are supposed to do it!) He still needs to work on that, but he did great! He even loped nice circles, which is something I struggled with in the fenced in arena. I trotted him around the barrels several times. The second time around he decided the dirt was going to jump up and nibble on his legs, so we had to work through that. Anyhow, he has no clue why he was turning around this round objects, but he's doing it very nicely for a beginner. I love the way his body follows his head! It's exactly how I like him to turn. I'm anxious for the light to come on above his ears so we can learn how to set and turn. Right now we are just doing the pattern.

I was on one of my last trips around the barrels when he decided to attempt to start bucking. I had to pull him around and get after him. All the training we did to get him to this point...to prepare for the 'he might want to buck' had paid off! We got out of the buck in no time and was back to work. I took him one more trip around the barrels and he did it the best that last time so I stopped.

Shelby News:
Shelby tried an Avocado a couple of nights ago. LOL I have to feed her avocado again so you can see the face she makes. She is not sure if she likes it, but she kept eating it anyhow. She is so anxious to eat our food I believe she'll eat anything we give to her off of our plate. Anyhow, we are starting to introduce her to a few bites of easy to chew foods. She knows how to gum it until it turns to mush, which is good. She also eats and likes marshmallows. Ms. Brenda, her babysitter, introduced her to them. I went to pick her up earlier this week and it was funny to watch her eat the little pieces of marshmallow.

She has been eating a lot more lately, so I'm pretty sure she's fixin' to grow! I'm sure we'll be changing out her clothes again. It seems like I'm doing that every few weeks. Out with the old, in with the new. I'm sometimes sad to see some of her cute little outfits packed up and put away.