Confidence in a new environment

I was so proud of Rocky, and of me, and of our relationship, this morning. I took half a day off work to join a play day at a new-to-us environment, and Rocky never panicked or exploded. I let him look around some, and slowly worked on gaining more connection, until in the end, he tried to come to me at liberty, cantering, across a 200-foot arena, except that he got blocked by the other horses and had to regroup and go around.

I was able to sneak-video a few things. Of course, most of the time my focus was on the horse, and thus all the best stuff exists only in experience, not in documentation. Still, this should give you an idea of how it all went.

(The shaking in the last scene was because I was waving so Rocky could see me. I’m lucky to even have that last clip — right before Rocky completed his arc and put his nose in my hand, my cell phone ran out of space, but for once it saved the video in progress. And I don’t even remembering having the video on when we called them over!)