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The Challenge | The Trainers and Students | Event Information
Hello everyone, Its been a while since we updated so we have a lot to share. Gracie is progressing very well, she has gone on trail and is not afraid of anything! The only thing we have to work on is patience with the standing time. She tends to paw when we ask for a rest. When she sets her mind on something she is quite pushy and gets a little bossy, so we have to remind her who exactly is in charge. We had a very exciting day and night last Tuesday - that afternoon she crossed the bridge and worked on leg pressure in the arena...but in the evening she went on a field trip to the fair grounds where she participated in a search and rescue scenario. We were weaving in and out of buildings, over RR tracks, through trees, puddles and anything else you can imagine in an old town setting. There were people with dogs, radios squealing and "horse killer" objects everywhere we turned.
We finally found a technically savvy person to take pictures! Hope you enjoy seeing our girl! we love her! Everyone thinks she is beautiful! -Mounted Patrol Group Monday, July 6 I thought I should include another update on Gracie. We practiced trailer loading....she did very well as she always does. We stopped at the 5th load! I have to say that she liked me for loading better than Tim! Pretty funny considering Tim is her FAVORITE! She is doing well with her leads and is responding well now to the bit. She is getting much better at watching her space during ground work. We plan to take her out on the trails this week. She is not afraid of anything that we have found yet. By the way, we will get pictures up on the site...just as soon as us humans 1) find the camera! and 2) figure out how to load it! We may have to inlist the services of a third party! So if you come out to visit Gracie, feel free to bring a camera! (You know - in case us humans get stuck on #1 or #2.) Monday, June 22 Hi All - Our student is progressing very well! She is a very smart girl and we are enjoying working with her. She is under saddle now and has not had a single bad session....we never got a buck or spin out of her! She is learning "slowly" how to move and respond to our leg pressure and we have recently switched from a bitless bridle to the bit to get a better response. Everyone loves her! She comes to the gate when we call her name and I think she likes to work with us as much as we like working with her....she will make someone a forever, loving and eager girl! She had her first vet visit and did VERY well. She stood nicely after just a few seconds of backing up. We have some ointment for her eye that is supposed to improve the color and remove the blue look....anxious to see how this works as she does have very good vision in this eye! > Back to the Trainers and Students
About the Dakota Mounted Patrol: We are the Dakota County Mounted group. Our members have varying degrees of training ability from little (me) to semi advanced. Our student is "Gracie" is a very sweet appaloosa mare who came to us May 14th. She was a bit nervous upon her arrival and would like to make us think that she was completely disinterested in her human partners, we knew otherwise as she kept one eye on us at all times. She was quite indignant about the fact that we were ignoring her! When she could no longer stand it, suddenly her fear of nearly everything in the arena was much less than her feelings of rejection and she came to us! She is eager to work and learn, she meets us at the gate ready to work and really seems to enjoy her training so far. She has NO problem working from her "bad eye" her vision seems quite good and she performs just as well from both sides. We continue to take our time with good ground work and continue to be amazed at her progress, she is not at all confused by the number of trainers which will be a huge advantage to her new "forever friend" It is harder for us as teachers insuring our movements are the same and remaining consistent.....HUMANS!
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Saturday, July 25
She is walking right in the trailer with little or no hesitation and trailers nicely. Her riding skills are improving by the day. Kelly is getting her to respond very well to leg pressure, we definitely do NOT need to teach her the stop cue and the lightest touch or sit back stops her dead. This makes it a little difficult to teach her collection though so we are working on that. 
She does like to take the lead and with all of the over stimulation presented to her, we allowed her to have that position. She did amazingly well...again, she is very smart. There was a bit too much down time in the beginning, so she was a little wound up at the start. Kelly started out leading her through about 1/4 of the course and rode her the rest of the time, in all she got over 2 hours of sensory training and passed beautifully.