Me And My Shadow

Today was another good day with my little girl. After doing the stablechores we went straight out for a walk around the pasture threw the harvested oatfield up to the big green field. I gave Milva alots of rope to roam at and followed her. The only thing she was not allowed to do was falling in trott everything she was allowed. It was intressting to see where she wanted to go. I thought that she would go straight up to the field and graze but when she understood that she had the 51% leadership she started to explore. Instead of walking up and grazing she went into the next field and mooseyed around there. Very leftbrain.
In the other field she found a spot with fresh harvested grain. It was too cute - she had this very surprised expression on her face and looked at me like do you see - there is food out here in the middle of the field! She is so funny! I had to take her away though after eating some mouthfulls. I didn´t want her to get a colic of eating too much grain.
Playing me and my shadow is really intressting and so much more to it than I first thought.
Me and my shadow is about establishing mutual respect between you and your horse and also about the importance of swapping leadership. The key is to switch leadership between you and your horse by no more than 2% that way the partnership is still respected but someone - either you or your horse - will make decisions until the next swap of leadership is taking place.
I could see the very nice change in Milva when she was grazing. When it was her turn to follow me I just had to walk of and she would follow - with no tension in the rope.
If I wouldn´t play me and my shadow I would never know what´s important to Milva. I would never learn what she is thinking. I would never learn how to make her happy or how to honor her opinions.