We lunged Bliss and Misty in the sand school for the first time today. Horses are more often than not lunged before riding. Knowing Bliss and Misty it was important to ride them first. Lunging teaches horses to go in to different phases of walking, trotting, canter and halt on voice command. Lungeing also helps Horses to coordinate their weight and balance, it improves the Horses outline and strengthens their hind quarters. Lunging has many benefits for both experienced and unbroken inexperienced Horses. We are only using lungeing with Bliss and Misty to teach Bliss and Misty the voice commands of walking, trotting, canter and halt. It is then used when riding them, eventually the commands are made with the reins, knees and heels.
The equipment used for lungeing, is a caveson and lunge line. The caveson is a type of head collar that has padding to stop any chaffing of the Horse. Some people will use head collars to lunge with, but they tend to cut into the Horse skin, if the Horse tries to resist being lunged and pull away. You also need a lunge line of about twenty two metres long. Initially one person walks around in a circle of about twenty metres, another person stands in the middle of the circle at the end of the lunge line. Eventually the Horse will, we hope, walk at the end of the line in the twenty metre circle. Then it is a matter of keeping the Horse at the end of the line, making it go into a walk, trot, canter or halt, all the time giving voice commands to let the know what they are doing.Horses never understand the words, so you need to emphasise the sounds and words. Both Bliss and Misty both were very good on their first try. Both tried to walk towards the person holding the lunge line. Both also got excited and gave a number of bucks and darted towards the exit of the sand school. I am sure that they will get the hang of it in a couple of days.
We had two Barn Owl nest boxes put up in our large modern barn today, by the Barn Owl Trust. I think that I have told you before that we haven’t seen any Barn Owl since we have been living at Denbury. We have left a couple of areas of pasture without being grazed, to encourage a rough area that is good habitat for voles, the Barn Owls main food source. We also have an old barn that was built with holes in the ends to encourage Barn Owl. The two nesting boxes have been positioned on two opposite walls of the barn, hoping that any Owl that passes has an opportunity to see one of them. There must be Barn Owls in the area. Hopefully with the new nesting boxes and the rough grass area we may get some Barn Owls visiting Denbury.
Yes Elaine they were Deer on the Puppy cam earlier this evening. I had only a little while earlier drove down the valley, with the dogs chasing behind, so I was surprised that the come out so soon after.