Snakes & Monsters & Bears!

So much for improving on my own style today!

When we arrived at the farm it was raining pretty hard. In bad weather and when we ride after dark, we always ride in the inside arena, as we chose to do today. And even though it was pouring rain and nasty as all hell outside, Jojo was STILL pissed about being dragged away from his friends in the pasture to come inside and play with us lesser humans.

Everything and I mean EVERYTHING was spooking him today. Usually when I'm brushing him and preparing to tack him up I make soft clucking noises in between my mundane run-on sentences about nothing. Today this seemed to drive him absolutely nuts.

I figured the weather outside didn't help, of course. There wasn't any thundering or anything like that, but Jojo is even MORE sensitive to storms than your average horse.

So we took our time brushing him out, talking him down until he finally resigned himself to getting a saddle thrown on his back regardless of what kind of mischief he got up to to stall it.
Jojo tacked up, I did my regular walk through of the arena, since the hay is baled and in the center, it is impossible to see straight across and sometimes bags or wheelbarrows or other stuff is placed just so that it makes my Punkin act like psycho. Seeing nothing out of place, I returned to Sir Spooksalot and hopped on. Immediately he took off at a trot. I reined him in to a walk and forced him through the motions.

Now, as punishment for reining him in, I suppose, he decided he wanted no part of this ride at all and would stop every 20 feet or so. It took about 10 minutes for me to get him to cooperate. Finally, I moved him into a trot and then a fast trot, to which he answered by freezing just as we came around the front corner of the hay, his head and shoulders rigid, he snorted and looked around for bears.

I saw nothing and urged him on. We made it full circle before he froze again. Rinse and repeat. About 20 times! Finally, I broke him into a canter and was able to hold his attention. All was well until we slowed again to a soft trot. Front corner: Freeze. Dammit!

This time I let him stand for a moment and took a really long, intense look around, wondering if there were a cat hiding in the hay or if I had missed a hose, anything, anything that would spook him. I saw nothing in our path, nothing to the sides, except a bottle of water that I had set on the ledge of the tack room window.

My mouth dry from the dust in the arena, I decided to let him rest a moment while I dismounted and grabbed a drink. I finished the last of the water and tossed the bottle into the trash, remounting and preparing to start all over.

To my surprise, his skittishness had all but fled. I was able to hold his attention and he picked up his cues and we had not one more single problem. I dismounted again, retrieved the bottle and set it back on the ledge of the window.

Once again we played trot:freeze:trot.
I dismounted and brought him the bottle which he shied away from at first, then sniffed, the tried to eat. I let him get it out of his system, then put it back on the ledge. I let him freeze once more and then walked him over to the bottle, let him check it out on his own and after he knocked it in the dust I picked it up again.

Rinse and repeat, as I said.

I remounted AGAIN and we had no more problems. I felt successful for a moment until I realized that I had just cured Jojo's fear of plastic bottles. At eye level. In the arena.
Jesus.

Now we just have to work on weeds, tall grass, my watch, the front gate, buckets, cats, my gloves (No shit, he hates my gloves!) and just about everything else.

My poor Punkin. Sometimes I feel sorry for HIM that he has ME as a rider. Eventually he will trust me enough to know that I will keep him from danger and not ride him into it.