Christmas is coming...

... and I'm still lunging away. :)

I think Bonnie and I have come to some sort of agreement with this lunging business. We both make compromises in order to make the situation as pain free as possible.

I have come to understand that I cannot reasonably expect her to just walk round without jogging until she has got some energy out of her system, therefore we start each session with a 5 min trot/bit of canter on each rein. In return, Bonnie will now let me carry a lunge whip most of the time without trying to bugger off. She will also make some nice walk-trot-walk transitions, but only in the last 5 mins or so of the session, when she's tired herself out a bit. :)

She's also learnt that if she comes to a halt like I ask, there are usually polos involved! Although she does get annoyed that I make her do stretches to get them rather than just giving them to her.

I've also started doing a bit of groundwork with her at the end of each lungey, just so we don't both go mindless with boredom. Just simple things like backing up from my voice, yielding her quarters and shoulders to me, etc etc. She picks things up very quickly! Like today, I hadn't even finished saying 'back' and she did about 6 steps backwards, stood there waiting for me to let her return, then trotted the short distance back to me to get some love. :)

She's a lovely girl really I suppose. But I'm still not very happy with her seeing as she gave me a blood blister. She went to bite Flea when we were walking past his stable and got my finger instead! Bloody horse.