Recovery

I found out I passed Level 2++ online.  I spent the rest of the night sobbing (literally, sobbing).  Wishing I hadn't sent it in, hating how little progress I've made (yeah, I know), being jealous of everyone else full of amazingness...pretty much digging myself into a hole of misery.

But a little sleep and I went out and played the next day.  My undemanding time and taking things slow has at least fixed my catching game.  Cal once again is approaching me, which is great.  I played and had a right-brain extrovert on my hands.  Worked a lot on back-up.  I decided I want to start getting a speedier back-up.  And did some circles.  Got cantering, but without RRC.  Mostly did a lot of backing-up and working on getting that more responsive.  Oh, and had a nice stick-to-me session, really focusing on having Cal put effort into staying with me.  That went well.  Ended at liberty, with Cal sticking with me in the shed pasture, despite everyone else being way down in the lower pasture.  Still, had lingering feelings of doubt from the night before.

Today, though, was just what I needed.  My dad was around so I had someone to play with.  We played in the pasture, where I did some more playing with my back-up and stick-to-me, which both went a lot better today, and some circles, working on using the entire 45' line.  Then we wandered around the playground area and I let Cal eat and played some touch-it games with my truck, the house, the trailer.  And did a fun really tight squeeze game between my truck and the garage.

Big thing.  Over the past week or so I've been going back to really basic just friendly with the stick.  And I've FINALLY fixed my broken friendly game (which has been broken the past 4 years) of tossing the savvy string over Cal's back.  Woooohooooo!  Superness!

I played with Lyssi, too.  She was full of energy and fire today!  Lots of fun!  Even more fun was seeing all the horses want to play!  Thunder started chasing after her while she was circling.  Buttons was happy to hang out.  Cal was doing good.  And my dad had a really awesome session with Furi!  Furi got on the trailer for the first time...without being pressured or asked, purely out of curiosity!!!  Cool!  At the end, Furi was happily just hanging out with me dad.  Soooo sweet.  <3  Hehehe.

A memorable day.  This is how I want all my interactions with the horses to be like.  With them full of curiosity and excitement, wanting to hang out and play with the humans.  My dream, and today was as close as I've ever gotten to that casual relaxing, feeling as if the horses are enjoying being with you as much as you're enjoying being with them!!!!