A bit of Horse Heaven

This lovely weather that we have been having is great trick training weather!  Missy and Kitty have been doing a great job learning and trying to learn new tricks.  I've been so distracted by Kitty's injury, I really haven't had time or even felt like trick training....until this week...I thought to myself that it ain't fair that Kitty is injured and I'm just gonna pretend she's not!  We're doing tricks this week!  And boy, have I had a FUN time!  It's a bit of horse Heaven!!!  Kitty is absolutely amazing!  I wish I could get someone to take a video of all her tricks-she really does enjoy making me laugh!  She's quite the entertainer!  I'm very pleased to announce that Kitty has laid down for me 2 days in a row!!  And taking less than 2 minutes each time to do it!  This is not a trick I regularly practice because I prefer nice weather to try it in since I'm encouraging her to roll or go down.  Kitty is a tricky horse to teach things too.  She's very smart, but not very giving.  She wants to resist pressure instead of give too it.  So...I'm trying a harder/longer way of teaching a horse to lay down.  This method uses no force-no pressure-no nothing-just a cue!  You just encourage your horse to lay down on its own.  I first started this method in the summer. After a long sweaty ride, I would take Kitty into our new!!! sand!!! round pen!!!!!!!!!! (yes, I love it!) and look at the ground point at it and say down.  Of course she had no clue what I wanted at first, but when she laid down, I'd give her lots of praise and treats!  She understands this trick better now as she will always stare at the ground and paw-she just doesn't always lay down for me!  But we're on a 2 day streak!!  Also, I haven't tried to keep her down yet.  She usually lays downs-waits for me to give her a treat and pops back up, but I don't mind if this method is slow.  It's the only method that works for her.  The others she resists to extremes and this method she just goes down naturally.  If it's a long wait-that's ok with me and if she gets bored with it I guess you won't be able to say I didn't try!  :)  Here's proof that it did at one time work!