We're one step closer to being officially Ohio bound. Right now we're waiting on a date he needs to be up there and a relo amount - once we know how much money they will give him to relo, we can start really arguing over me packing and driving a borrowed utility trailer versus hiring movers, and me borrowing a trailer and driving the horses up versus hiring shippers. No point in getting our hearts set on doing this one way or the other til we know how much we've got to spend, though.
We are definitely getting some Valium for the cats. I already called the vet about that and she said she just needs to know their weights. I am so not looking forward to 10 hours in a truck with three squalling miserable cats.
Mmmm, horse stuff.
I've been in a bit of a slump. Waiting to find out if/when/how we're moving has taken a lot of fun out of life (for both of us, truth be told!) Cersei, as always, keeps me honest. Yesterday I took Champ and went trail riding. Today I just didn't even feel like riding, so I took Cersei out and threw The Ball for an hour.
Poppy found us and was the most adorable pest until I gave in and played with him. He hovered near me, running through all of his tricks (head down, head up, paw, stretch left, stretch right, back up) like some equine Tourette's sufferer. Eventually I couldn't help but give in. Went to Walgreens for a box of Frosted Mini Wheats and back out to pay him some attention.
After we clickered our way through half the box, I kicked him out of the round pen and let Dixie come in. I'd never done clicker work with her before (and I'm not entirely sure why not?) but she did well. I started off charging the clicker - just click stuff a treat in her mouth repeat. Then I waited til she got frustrated and nosed the ground, then started clicking for head down.
She's funny. When things don't go quite like she thinks they should, she gets very frustrated and obviously furious. She didn't paw or pin her ears at me, but you could just see her temper rising as she tried to figure out how to make me give her a mini-wheat again. She eventually stumbled on the right answer, and repeated it, and we had a pretty solid head-down (no cue yet) by the end of our session.
I don't know if this is "correct" or not but I don't like doing the same one command over and over for an entire session, so we broke it up with backing up and the beginnings of carrot stretches. I'd just put my hand on her heart girth and wait til she swiveled her head back to see why I was touching her, then click and treat.
It was good fun for everybody! Oh, and I trimmed Silky and checked Champ's feet. No pictures cause I was feeling like an uninspired slacker. Then I came home and found out we're' like 95% go on Ohio.
When Raven gets mad like that she gets little wrinkles around her nostrils -- nothing else, just three little wrinkles.
ReplyDeleteDo you throw The Ball with a chuckit?
I hope they give you a lot of money to move.
I did throw the ball with a Chuckit! This is the new Chuckit - the old one, which had served me well for about 6 years, was recently destroyed. By my truck. But it wasn't my fault, for once! T, who is a fairly responsible 13 year old, forgot to throw the chuckit back in my truck one night and I drove over it on the way out.
ReplyDeleteI hope they do too. It would be so nice to hire movers and horse shippers. I am pretty sure it won't be enough for both though.
I hope this move goes as smoothly as possible for you and your critters!
ReplyDeleteWhen Klein gets mad she totally rolls her eyes at me and will look past me just to make sure I clearly understand she's not listening, LOL.
I hope the move goes well! Ohio isn't too bad on looks; I've drive around (getting lost...) it a lot of it. Mainly, it's flat... but who knows, land is pretty cheap--maybe you could keep the horseys with you!
ReplyDelete