Tika's Training Update

Tika had been working well in the round pen. I always began the same way...lunging, followed by a bit of ground driving. On this particular afternoon, we'd done our round pen work in the morning and I decided that it wouldn't hurt to go to the arena for a bit more work.

Silly me...first time in ground driving in this arena, and I didn't follow my same pattern, but started straight off with driving. Didn't work so well.

After a bit of head tossing and uncertainty, I went back to the basics, which I ought to have done to begin with. Lunging without a wall to hold her together, Tika can still get a little jittery, but she's got such a good mind in terms of really trying to understand what's being asked of her. Once the jitters were worked out, we went back to driving.

She still struggles with turns to the right; it's always been her difficult side. Her head shakes a bit more when asked to turn that direction, as you can see. I've found another hole that happens mostly on the right side as well. She doesn't want to be led from that side, especially if it requires being between the wall and a person. I'm not certain Curt will attempt to lead her; he's more of a lunging kind of guy, but I'll be working on her claustrophobic issue over the next couple of days anyway. No reason not to work out any potential kinks, eh?

Yesterday after working Tika in the round pen, we went to the arena and watched part of a lesson. This was Tika's first time seeing the bull in action. The rumbling and movement startled her at first and she took a small jump back, but after that? Well, she was tense, yes, and her eyes were larger than their normal largeness, with white showing around the edges. She pushed me with her muzzle a couple of times, never taking her eyes off the bull, looking for reassurance. I'm so glad she's down there where she can see that in action and get used. Someday, it will be her and I going nose to nose with the hydrabull!