After an especially busy Monday, my Mom and I both needed a break so I suggested we go take a horsey break and teach Dolly a new trick. You can't be around this little girl and not be smiling!
Like Sadie, Dolly is extremely willing to learn. She is so treat motivated (like most horses!) that if you can get her to understand what you're asking, and she knows the end result is a treat, she'll do it!
We decided we wanted to teach her how to step up on something. Even though she's a mini, it still had to be something fairly substantial. We decided our large mounting block may do the trick.
We started out with one of us standing behind the mounting block with a treat (of course!) while the other person tried to lead her up to the first step. She didn't totally grasp it at first, she just kept going around it and then begging for the treat. She has the begging trick down!
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| She loves to beg! |
I finally decided to lift her foot onto the first step, so she could see that she could stand up on it. That did the trick! With just a bit more coaxing she was being led right up the steps.
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| She got a little aggressive on this one stepping all the way up! |
It only took a few times leading her up before she was able to do it all on her own! We then had to teach her how to safely back down the block. We've been working on backing up, so she did this with no problem at all!
We had to take the mounting block out of her stall when we were done because she was climbing on it without any prompting. Such a cutie, we are proud of our little "circus mini".
Our break did the "trick" for us too, we had so much fun and it totally took our minds off of any lingering Monday stress :)
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