Tales of an RB mess.

Oh lovely...

So this is what I get for not playing with my semi-unsound LBE of a Crest-monster consistantly for the past 5 weeks. (You get a cookie if you plowed through THAT run-on sentence) I decided that I wanted to play with him a bit, since he's been running around and looking sound for the past few days.

So he sidled up to me as I approached, per usual Cresty style, we haltered up and played stick to me from zone 4 to the gate. Very typical Crest, just hyper and playful. I brought him into the north paddock, and that's when I started to notice some edgy types of behaviors. Crest, while still playful, would throw in a nervous SNORT every couple of seconds. Being slightly unsure of how to read it (and having nothing there to interrupt anyway) I passed it off as adrenaline, and went on to do something a little less "hyper", to get him off his wind a little.

Next we went into the round corral to practice some long-overdue L2 liberty, and that's when things really came "unglued" (except they didn't really, I held it together well, I thought) Crest was totally RB, being anything close to being away from my side (which is charming, had it been LB clingy, not "Save me from the monsters" clingy) and what fascinating was that the majority of the time, if he had to leave my side at ALL, he'd go RBI. Which is a side I RARELY see of him. RBI is the side that comes out in a stressful learning situation, which hardly happens any more since I've gotten more savvy about setting things up for success with him. So. RBI, but a very explosive to RBE sort of RBI. So let me phrase it this way. The entire session was kind of touch and go between sitting doing nothing and freaking out like loonies together.

Finally, we got to a fairly confident spot, and I ended it on a very confident note buy asking him to step up on his pedestal (which he LOVES, and is ALWAYS confident about) and we called it. As I was putting him back in the pasture, the RBI struck one more time, as he was standing there, being what I thought was quiet and obedient, all of a sudden he shied into me. No idea what that was about, but we got things sorted, and I took the halter off only AFTER he got LB. So. Interesting. Guess I know what...or rather WHO I need to be spending some more time with!