Hola's Training Journal

Isn't it Murphy's Law that just when I decided I would start blogging again I would loose my laptop! So here I am blogging on my iPhone. It took me 10 minutes to write this paragraph... perhaps this is someone's secret plan to govern my tendency to be verbose. (clearly not working thus far).

I am hoping I can use this handy little ap to kill two birds with one stone... I want to keep a log of my training sessions with Hola (that I started on paper yesterday) and to maintain some semblance of a functioning blog.

So for the past few days I've been tying Hola for ten minutes, picking up all her feet, asking her to follow the line and move her shoulders, hips and to back up by touch and by pressure.

This morning I brought her in and threw a blanket on her which she took like an old hand. I then tied her to the wall and set the timer on my phone for fifteen minutes. About 5 minutes in I noticed the flies were really bad and really bugging her (she had no spray on). Now I faced a quagmire, on one hand I didn't want to torture her or create a negative tying experience... On the other hand she is going to have to learn to deal with itches and aggravations while tied without loosing her mind. In the minute I took to stand there to think about it she started to get really pissed and pull on that rope a little. My decision was made. The flies were not THAT bad (there were maybe 5 on her) not biting and she just needed to suck. it. up.. I waited a minute and watched her. Sure enough in just a short time she settled again and stood quietly. I quickly walked over and untied her. It worked out being a great lesson that ended well. She was tied for maybe 8 minutes total. Tomorrow I will spray her well before tying. My goal for tomorrow is to have her stand quietly in hand for 5 minutes as today I stopped to talk to L. and she acted like she had ants in her pants. One of the many things we are going to work on over the Fall/Winter. In fact, the other day I sat down with a few cue-cards to write a list of specific things I want Hola to have a good start on and/or even a solid foundation on by April. Eight cue-cards later I decided to type it out. Two pages later... I think I'm overly ambitious. I will share that list next time:)