an open gate is not an invitation.

Lucy and I had a little discussion about the gate to the outdoor today. I decided a good challenge would be to leave it open so that she could learn that just because the gate is open, does not mean you can run through it whenever you please.

We warmed up nicely and then the barn owner came over to say hello, so I stopped on the rail about 10 feet away from the gate and we had a nice chat. Lucy must have thought we were done for the day so when I tried to ask her to walk past the gate, she got 3/4 of the way past the gate and threw a little tantrum. I sat quietly in the saddle, kept my outside leg on her so that she couldn't side step out of the ring, and kept contact with my inside (left) rein so that she couldn't turn to the right and get out that way. Her tantrum lasted for maybe ten seconds, at which point she completely gave up and walked off like a nice horse, and got some praise and then the whole thing was forgotten about. She then proceeded to w/t/c on some nice soft contact for half an hour with the gate wide open and nary a step towards it. Good horse. As a little reward for being such a good girl, I stopped at the grocery store and bought out their entire stock of reject apples (3 packages/18 apples) for a grand total of $4, since I've found them hard to get lately. Maybe someone else caught on to the bruised apple section at the grocery store and is buying them for their pony ;)