First Moon Walk

Gosh I wish I had pictures from today!!! This photo is from last month but it's better than nothing.

Moon has come along pretty well, and today was the first day I led her and let Sean walk along next to her with his hand on her back. This sounds so very simple, but it has taken 12 weeks of working with Moon for me to take this chance.

Before all this happened today, I helped Sean get his new boots on. Whenever he is around Moon, he will be wearing his boots to protect his feet. Tennies are absolutely out! Sean had to practice walking in his new boots before we even went near the horses. This is because of the way Sean walks. When he is in his tennis shoes (which is nearly always) he slides his feet along the ground. If you think about it, it makes sense. He can then feel the difference in terrain as he comes to it. But when he walked in his boots, the sliding technique didn't work. He tripped a few times before he got the hang of having to lift his feet up off the ground. Fortunately, the boots give him excellent footing and it only took him a couple of minutes to figure out how he had to walk with those boots on!

Of course as soon as Sean and I had appeared outside, Moon had trotted down to the gate and nickered at us. I put her halter on (her) and brought her outside the corral. She was very excited about the prospect of having some grass to enjoy so I let her have a few bites before bringing Sean up alongside her.

I walked very slowly ahead of Moon. She didn't want to walk slowly at first but after Sean put his hand on her back and took a couple of steps next to her, she sort of calmed down. I led her, looking back at Sean and Moon, so that I could ensure she never got close to him with her feet. All went pretty well and we just slowly slowly walked up the field toward the riding ring.
By the time we had walked to the entrance of the riding ring, Sean had had enough and wanted to go back. So very gingerly, I turned Moon around while Sean stayed at her side. Then we made our way slowly down again to where we had started.

I steered Sean to his mini trampoline so he could sit down and enjoy the sunshine while I brought Moon back into the corral.

It was Sean's real first interaction with Moon. Sean did really well and so did Moon!
Nancy