*****Yes You Are!*****………………………*****Yes You Are!*****

Good Boy, Brave!!!…………………Good Boy!!!

Let me cut to the chase…..

Brave is now wearing his halter…..

…..and he wears it daily…..

…..all the time…..

It took FOREVER to get it on his little pony head!

But we perservered and prevailed…..!!!…..

Brave’s a big…..(huge)…..dopey/lap dog…..(with loads of muscle and dinner-plate-sized hooves)…..

…..(and those hooves could mow you over in a heartbeat)…..

But Rhiannon did it!

She’s been patient and persistent…..

…..and she continues to “gentle” him…..

With as ginormous as this stallion is…..he has VERY sensitive feelings…..

…..which can be easily crushed…..

…..he’s such an insecure/EMO boy…..

He wouldn’t hurt anybody intentionally…..(and let’s face it—a lot of stallions would go out of their way to do just that)…..

…..he could hurt someone out of insecurity and over-reaction…..

But…..Rhiannon has kept showing up…..

…..Brave even knows the sound of her car engine…..

…..he starts lunging himself when he sees her walking towards him in the round pen…..

…..we’ve had to over-come several of his avoidance habits that he learned over time from others who attempted to train him and then discontinued working with him…..

All animals (including us) learn how to adapt and survive and avoid what makes us uncomfortable…..

However…..now that Brave is wearing his halter…..

…..there is SO much more that we can do with training him…..

…..he’s a different pony…..

Right now we are practicing putting on and taking off and putting back on his halter…..

Rhiannon has said that he will lower his head (which is important because his is SO tall)…..

…..and then he will tilt it towards her (so that she can slip the headstall over each ear)…..

…..it might sound like a very small/miniscule accomplishment…..

…..but trust me…..it’s not…..IT’S HUGE…..!

Onward And Upward!………………………And GiddyUp…..!