Sunday, March 06, 2011

working with Bella...

We started Evangeline’s Parelli Natural Horsemanship with Bella today…learning the friendly game and the porcupine game...The 7 games are all about safety for the horse and rider and developing a relationship with your horse or pony...
We are waiting for Evangeline’s kid size equipment to arrive with the kidz stick and string and her own halter and line. I bought this purple on locally to get started but it is a pony size but a bit big. I am hoping the Parelli pony size will not be too big as Bella is very petite.

For the non horsey people out there...ears back are not always a warning sign...

The friendly game was great. The carrot stick is not a whip and is never used as such...you can  rub them with it, flick it around and all over them and they should not be frightened.

Lots of lip licking is a good sign!

Bella is good at hind quarter yields but not very keen on forequarter yields in the porcupine game.You can porcupine her back on her nose but not on her chest so well.

I then did the driving game with her good on the hind quarters but not so well on the forequarters. Again it took a bit to get her to drive back at the chest.

I tried the yo-yo game and that was quite challenging as she did not want to budge and would try to turn her head away sideways. Finally she did a couple of steps but it took a lot of shaking my whole arm! But that was enough.

Then Evangeline had a ride and that went very well. I had her on line and she rode with her arms out practising turning with her body and going around the cones. Bella did a great job and I was able to drive her around the cones with Evangeline using her body. We then just walked along practicing Bella stopping when I stopped in front of her.

So a pretty good start for us as we are all learning...Parelli is not for everyone but it suits us...to me it is a bit like the Montessori of the horseworld...Lissy

1 comment:

Sharon Manning said...

You have been busy with the horses...great to see you have an interest in common with E!