Ropes and a noodle

The title pretty much says it all.  This morning I tied Diamond to the hitching post and cleaned his feet as he touched the rope, waiting for treats.  Afterwards we went to the round pen and warmed up his body walking and trotting.  He now only gets to come in to me once his head is lowered as he trots around.  I hope this will translate to when I'm in the saddle but we shall see.  Every day he seems calmer and more confident that the noodle will not hurt him.  Today he just wanted to touch it with his lips over and over until I ran out of treats.  He picks things up so quickly I just wish he would retain them better.  Perhaps it is his age..

Good karma

Last night, I saved a bird.  I arrived at the stables to give Diamond his dinner, as always, but this evening I thought I would let him walk around one of the turn outs while I get his stall ready.  So out we went to the back turn out.  Now each of these turn outs has a water bucket and I wanted to be sure that the water was clean and there was enough for him to drink while he was waiting.  As I began to peer into the water bucket, something began to peer back.  Lo and behold, a small black bird was sitting at the bottom with water up to his chest.  After regaining my composure, I proceeded to yell at the bird, "Get out! Shoo! Fly away!" but try as he might, he could not fly out of the bucket.  He even opened his wings a bit to say, "I'm trying! I can't!"  "No, Cassie," I thought to myself, "you are not going to pick up this bird with your hands."  But what else could I do?  I had to get him out and the bucket itself was secured to the fence.  In my hands I held Diamond's halter and lead rope.  Holding both ends of the rope, I created a makeshift swing.  As I lowered the "swing" down to the bird I thought, "Don't you dare fly up after you said you couldn't and scare the living crap out of me!"  As I lowered it down to his chest, I kid you not, he gently put his feet onto the swing.  I slowly lifted the swing up.  Once he could see over the bucket he hopped down, gave me a chirp, and ran away.  "You're welcome!" I called out after him. 

Diamond was, of course, oblivious to all of this.  All he cared about was rolling in the dirt. 

This morning we walked over the post again and Diamond touched the rope as much as possible to get as many treats as possible.  I am glad he is becoming less and less afraid.  We also did some work in the round pen with the noodle.  He decided he would lift up his right front leg and paw at the noodle causing it to roll into him.  Instead of freaking out, he was calm and looked to me for a treat for touching the noodle.  

Tomorrow I hope to do the same routine.