Rule My Heart & Mi Chabela: a fast-forward off the last months...

Here we go again… a lot of time has passed… Hearts leg has healed, the weather has turned nice and I have returned from Germany. So now it is time get going. But let’s start right from the beginning…

A couple of days after our first trail ride, just before Christmas, Heart had his feet done for the first time since he came to us. Unfortunately the farrier must have tried to correct the angel of the hoofs to fast and also took too much of the hind hoofs, causing Hearts left hind pastern to puff up badly and leaving him saw on his feet for weeks without end… it kept us from doing any work at all for a very long time.

By the time we finally did get the OK from the vet to start working again the weather had turned so bad, that everything was flooded and we couldn’t do much more other than ride up and down our road, which fortunately is a dead end and therefore not very busy.

When the weather turned nice again, therefore giving our arena a chance to dry out, I had to go back to Germany to get my VISA. This was only planned to take about two weeks, but turned into a month until I was able to return to Alabama. Not that I didn’t enjoy the time there. It was a great time. I loved seeing my German friends again and it was awesome riding several different horses. I think it taught me quite a bit… so thanks to all my friends who let get onto their lovely horses!!!

So now I’m back and am so happy about it! It’s so good to be back with my boys and girl…

I spent the first week longing Heart to get him back into working. I brought back so many things from Germany, one of them being a longing aid. It’s like a long rope, that you attach at on one side of the bit, run it through the front legs up over his back on to his other side, back through the front legs and clip it onto the other side of the bit… it shows the horse the way down, while longing and it has helped as sooo much. Finally Heart has learned to stretch his long neck forward/downward instead of running like giraffe or just curling up his neck, nose close to his breast.

Tuesday I got on and rode him again for the first time in a very long time after longing him with a double longe for a couple of minutes first. Heart was great!!! He was nice and relaxed and walked and trotted while chewing on the bit… We didn’t do a lot, since he had had his shots on Monday and I didn’t want him sweating, but the little we did was fantastic! So now we are back at work and we will have to see how things go on :)

Ever since I returned from Germany I’ve been taking our new pup Maddie to the barn with me whenever I wasn’t working heart. She is very good around Heart and will listen to me, when I tell her to keep away from his hind feet. So today for the first time I took her with me, although I was planning on riding him. I had no idea, neither what she would do, when I got up in the saddle nor what she would do, when Heart would start moving faster than in a trot… She was sooo good. I started off with a walk down the road to get Heart warmed up. At first she looked at me like to say “ what are you doing up there?”, but then she started sniffing around and just went with us… She didn’t really listen when I tried to keep her away from neighbor’s doorsteps, but other than that she was a very good girl. She even resisted chasing after Felicia's cat, that just sat in front of her in the drive way. Instead she turned around and came running after us!

I then went into the arena to work with Heart. Maddie just followed us around, but didn’t get upset or anything and she always kept her distance from Hearts hindquarters. I walked, trotted and cantered and she was absolutely fine! I’m so happy about this… it’s nice to have a dog, that is good around the horses and that I will be able to take on trail rides with me. Now we only have to work on the ‘listening to commands’ part ;)

To cool down, we rode around the pasture and this time it was Heart being good and not even twitching when Maddie all of a sudden squealed bloody murder… She must have gotten too close to the electric fencing and went running like the fencing was still chasing her… but she’s fine and has hopefully learned her lesson ;)

Since people have been asking for pictures and I keep forgetting to take the camera to the barn, today I tried taking some with my cell phone camera. It is kind of heard taking pictures, when you don’t see what you are taking a picture of on the screen, hence they aren’t the best, but you can see how lovely green our pasture has become! :)