Ground Driving the Princess and the Pea

After the visit to Marrie Morgan's training facility last month, I came home with the homework of ground driving my ponies until I could correct the bend in the rib cage in either direction and leg yield in both directions.

I worked on this mostly with Yndi. She was tricky because if she didn't know what I was asking, she didn't do anything. I had to get after her a little, then she became hyper-tuned. After more than a few sessions, I could I could leg yield her other way, but couldn't steer because she no longer followed her head. Then I had to figure out how to use my outside rein to turn.

Fortunately, now, I could start Pepper back to work. Pepper is different from Yndi, she does exactly what you ask, regardless of what you actually mean. "Garbage in, garbage out." I had to figure out how to turn Pepper as well as leg yield. Its that tricky outside rein. So I thought I had it and went back to Yndi.

Poor Ynid was stressed a little. That's Yndi. Its as if she runs everything through Google Translate to figure out what you want. It make her hard to correct, because if he is going wrong, anything you do to fix it makes her go wronger in the same direction. So we started out with problems and I had to straighten her and walk on and try again Then....She got it! I praised her and went to her head and rubbed her and scratched her and took the reins off and led her back to the trailer to take of the rest of the equipment. AND IT WORKED! The next day, she understood and it was totally better.

Pepper, I think, is ready for the cart again. My Pepperoni Pony had a hard time, coming down with some kind of bug and getting a fever and not eating Dr. Novick came out and treated her. She recovered slowly, better each day than the previous one. She and Yndi both got shoes, and a couple days after, Pepper became lame. I didn't know it it was a nail that was not quite hot, or an abscess. It didn't act like a hot nail would, so I soaked her foot in Epsom salts to draw the abscess out. It got better, so it was either resorbed or not an abscess. Possibly her stomach was bothering her.
Lauren gave me some ground fennel seed to try, and I put her on probiotics for a while and doubled up on her ulcer supplement. She gets 5-10 minutes of round pen each day.

I ordered a years supply of a supplement for Kentucky Performance Products after I heard about it on The Stable Scoop Podcast. Its for easy keepers on limited feed and horses that are one dried forage. It makes up to the fat soluble vitamins that may be lacking. It only comes in this size, so it will have good trial at least. This may be a solution to Pepper's lack of resiliency. I'll say it again, Pepper is The Princess And The Pea.