handing over the decision making

I was mulling over the situation with Rosie, as I was pootling along the dual carriageway home from the railway station.

I was getting ahead of myself and wondering, if I took Rosie to a clinic with someone like Mark Rashid or Kathleen Lindley, how I would describe the issue and what I wanted to work on.

(This was top of my thoughts because the spring dates for Kathleen and summer dates for Mark in the Uk have just gone up - neither are getting as far as Scotland this time around :( )

Anyhow - a lot of people seeing Rosie's behaviour in the school would probably assume she was being "naughty" or "bolshie". But if she only has one choice (is by herself in the school for example) she tends to get on with it more. It is when she starts to have options that the problem shows up. It is as if she can't yet trust the rider to decide between what to do, but actually doesn't have the confidence to do so herself, so just stops instead.

So what would help was if she learnt to hand over the decision making to the rider (this is something Mark talks about for some horses).

Then I suddenly realised - I had been thinking Fi had been going very nicely in the school. Even when it is quite windy - and I have not been taking down the windmill bird scarers in the vegetable patch alongside the school. But I had just been seeing the symptoms -calmer, steadier, more consistent.

But I *think* this may be her being more able to hand over the decisions to me.

I know it is not applying very well anywhere else yet - the walk/jog pleasure class the other week showed that. But its a start :)