She followed me back out of the round pen and into her paddock like a pro. Back in the paddock I refilled her water trough since she had managed once again to empty it and make the surrounding ground a muddy mess. I held the hose up out of the water to see what she would do about the sound and the running water. What she did was give it the briefest glance as she stuck her head down to drink, then ignored it completely. She did manage to get her head under the hose, so it was then going over her neck. This only made her give me a slightly irritated look as I pulled up more length in the hose and slid it over her head. No startling, no jumping about, not even any head jerking with this strange thing rubbing over her neck and ears and head.
All in all, Still had a great morning.
The evening session did not go quite as well. Stella balked just a bit at the gate into the round pen, but I figured it was because there was something new in there and she needed a moment to size things up. On the way home from the morning session I had got Stella a Jolly Ball to play with in the round pen. I had also brought a towel to get her used to having something flapped around, draped over her, rubbed on her, and such things.
Once in the round pen Stella needed approximately ten seconds to size up the Jolly Ball, approach it, and decide it was something to be pawed at and kicked around. She didn't get really playful with it, but she did spend a few minutes pawing at it and nosing it around the round pen.
She is pretty good at coming up to me wherever I am in the pen unless she gets distracted by something outside, and even then it just distracts her for a moment then she returns her attention to me.
After a few minutes of this her attention turned to the towel on the fence, so I watched her explore it for a bit. She sniffed it all over and nosed at it, even sticking her head under it to sniff about.
Since she didn't spook at it, I decided to try touching her with it. Oh boy, she discovered yet another thing that could pet her! She let me rub that towel all over her, her back, her belly, her legs, her butt. She didn't care, but she did make her happy face with her lip going that it was petting her. Well, that went so well I put it over her back like a saddle blanket to see what she would do. What Stella did was act slightly unsure while I put it on, then turn and nose at it in a bit of confusion over why it was now just sitting on her and not petting her anymore.
When I ran to the other side of the round pen and called her, Stella looked at me for a second, then seemed to give a sort of equine shrug of "whatever, ok" and calmly walked over to me with the towel over her back. She didn't try to shake it off or pull it off even once.
I had Mom come in to hold Stella's head so I could pick her feet. I only did her front feet this time around. She wasn't too sure about me actually working on her feet rather than just holding them up for a second or two, but Mom held her steady and Stella didn't object very much to me picking out the largest of the rocks from her hooves.
That was an awful lot of work for one little filly on only her third day of being with people. We played a bit more Come to Me and kicked the Jolly Ball around a bit, then it was time to go back to her paddock.
She hooked up on her lead rope and followed me around for a few laps of the round pen, then out the gate just fine. When we got to the gate to her paddock, she balked. Feet planted firmly, she was not coming into that space. I backed her up and we took a few tight turns, then tried again. This time she reluctantly went through, but when I turned her around to be able to close the gate she refused to stop and just kept walking and went right back out of the paddock again.
That's when she really started to refuse. She refused to go into the paddock, and she refused to go back into the round pen. She wanted to go see the horses in the next pasture and was rather pissed that I wouldn't let her go over and say hi. We went quite a few rounds in tight circles outside her paddock gate and had a little pulling match before she finally decided to follow me into the paddock. Once inside I pet and scratched on her and let her know that coming into the paddock with me was what I had wanted her to do.
Every night after I take off her halter I hang out with her in the paddock for a few minutes, so she doesn't feel like getting put away means that she is immediately going to be abandoned. And absolutely nothing negative has happened to her in the paddock, I leave any new experiences that might pressure her to the round pen, so that it is a place she associates with playing and learning.
At this point I think she has done an awesome job learning the basics, and I think that I am well established as her best friend. In the coming days we need to reinforce the good behaviors that she has learned, and I need to get a bit more respect from her. It is great to be her best friend, but I also need to be her leader.
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