Arena

My new roundpen with an amazing view.

Thanks to Dennis Marx i have a nice flat area to ride in.  Dennis has transformed an uneven area to an amazing 20m round arena with an amazing view.  To save a few pennies my lovely husband is running the roller over the base.  Now just have to decide what surface i want.

Dottie's Turn

In  my plans to mix things up i added some poles for the fig. 8 pattern.

 Dottie was a little distracted because a couple of tractors were ploughing up the field below.  Look how taught the 22' line is.

 This is Dottie's favourite position as her reward is to have her tummy scratched, here, here and here please!
Such a beautiful little pintolossa and so much fun.

Fun with 22' Feather lines

 Finally after 10 attempts i have managed to upload photos.

 

I set up some cones down the driveway.  I wanted to see if Buzz would weave through the cones. Of course Dotti had to come too.  She doesn't like to miss anything especially if there is a promise of grass at the end of the driveway .

 

Once Buzz realized i wanted him to "walk on" with me behind he did very well.  But i did have to go back and fix my send on the circle.

22' Feather Lines

The Little Red Ball

We haven't been able to play in the paddock as its been so wet.

I wanted to add some imagination into playing with my horses and felt i was far to focused on the tasks.

So we have been having some fun with a new red ball.  Dotti loved the big blue ball, the green one has a leak.  I brought the red ball as it has a handle and i thought it would be fun to teach her to pick it up.

Armed with a pocket full of sticky dates i went out this afternoon with the intention of playing with Dotti but The Boss aka Buzz had other ideas.  Protecting his herd of two Dotti was sent to the far corners of the paddock.

Buzz plays "put your nose on this" game quite well.  It did not take him long to get the idea and my intention was to ask him to pick it up.  It didn't take him long to get this either.  So we quit there as he gets easily bored.

So what did i learn from this?

1. How much fun we have together.
2. How quickly he learns fun things.
3. Interesting how he thinks of me as his herd - or was he protecting his date source.

Trust

I have been totally frustrated with my blog page and not being able to post the way i wanted to so i resorted to writing long hand in a journel.  In some ways this is better as i can write things down immediately and not rely on my memory. 

Dotti has been a joy to play with and as you can see she is very playful.  She does this almost every feed time.  I am having a ball with her literally as she also loves to play with the ball trying to jump on it, bite it and push it with her nose.  I can bounce the ball and put it on her back. 
She can be very dominant so i have cut out the treats and now give scratches for reward and she is happy to tell me where those spots are.

LBE+A for awsomeness for my little Dotti.

New Toys and New Buddy

Finally after 5 months i filled in the tractor tire.

the cows enjoyed playing in the sand.

So did Buzz. You want me to put my hoof where?

Meet Dotty.

She had to check out the sand pit too.

Then we gave Dotty a tour of the paddock.

There is a little ditch here

and she managed to find the crossing all by herself.