Day Eighteen

I'll never let it show while I'm in the round pen with the horse, but internally I am so frustrated. Mostly I'm acting on instinct when I'm in there with him; I really feel like I understand him and what he thinks about what we're doing. Its not hard to figure out what I need to do to get him to understand. But now we've hit the proverbial brick wall, and I have no idea where to go from here. It makes me feel a lot better that it's baffling Cindy too. He's giving us all the signs that he's ready and willing for human contact, except that he won't step towards us. His circles around the round pen are getting smaller, he stops facing us, but his bubble is still about eight feet in diameter, and I have no idea what to do. The Mustang people said try the Approach and Retreat method, and I can see where that relaxes him but we're still not getting far.

I suppose I just need to be patient and give him time. I want so badly to have made tangible progress by the time this class is over that I'm starting to focus too much on the deadline. He's made incredible progress as far as being tolerant of humans and relaxing around us, but he's not ready to accept us as his herd yet.

Although I'm not really getting the usual Training and Handling experience, (more like Taming Wild Horses 101), I feel like I'm going to walk out of this class with a much better understanding of myself and how my body language affects horses. With domestic horses, they sometimes don't display reactions to our body language, but with the mustangs, they tell us what they think of our movements even if we barely shudder.

On a semi-related note, I ran with him today while roundpenning him, and I have to say, running with a wild horse was a pretty neat experience. Perhaps through that I can teach him that I'm his equal?