Sweetwater Day 32

Big, big day for Sweetwater.  She has been going to the arena to graze on a regular basis now.  I still leave the lead rope dragging just in case, but she has been generally behaving herself.  

 Then in the afternoon we took a big trip,

 all the way to the indoor arena.  This is about 1/4 mile from the barn I am keeping her in, up and down steep hills and through 2 large open fields and past Brother who is in a temporary fat lot, so yes, it was a big trip.

And surprisingly, she was quite calm.  I actually thought it would be a good time to start getting her to canter but I was only able to get half a circle out of her.  

 We did a lot of work with the tarp.  It took a while but she finally got two feet on.

 It was a pretty hot day so what better time to try out the water hose.  She did great with that too.

 While we were at it, let's use the official blocker tie ring.  She got a little agitated with this however.  She paced back and forth, tested is several times, rubbed her head on it a lot,

 then laid down to roll.  That was nice to be covered with sand right after a bath.

 After she finally accepted her fate,  she stood for me to comb out her mane, acting like a regular horse.

 I spent some more time desensitizing her to the tarp.

 She took a couple of spells jumping sideways, but was basically accepting.

 And of course what you do on one side you have to do on the other.

We spent about 3 hours in the arena, then back to the cattle barn for the night.  I might have a regular horse yet.