The adjustments

I've been a little behind on posting lately because it's tough to write about the times when nothing seems to be working.  This is not to say that I haven't been learning a ton even so, but things just aren't going very well right now.  I'm trying to make adjustments, that will revive the connection between me and the horses, but so far I haven't exactly had any "aha" moments.
Since my last post catching has been harder and harder.  I think the horses are getting the wrong idea about me when I come to catch them.  Perhaps they see me as a bad thing because when I come into their enviroment, that means they have to stop eating grass.  The other day I decided to bring a bucket of treats out to the pasture when I didn't need to catch them and just sit there.  Gingy and Cherokee came over when they saw the bucket.  Cherokee wandered off after awhile, but it definitely started a conversation with Gingy.  The problem was that there was a destinct point at which Gingy drew the line, if I asked to much of him he would go off and eat grass :(  So that was one day's experimentation...

The next day I was pretty much resigned to using the lead ropes in order to catch them.  They didn't mind that too much and I did my best to "mosey" back to the corral with them so they didn't see getting caught as meaning no more grass period.  When I had all of them back in the pen I expected that they would hang out with me if I sat by the water trough, but it was as though they had formed a clique amongst themselves.  I felt a terrible lonelyness welling up inside and I decided to go up to the house rather than sit by myself down at the barn. 

The third day of my experimenting I headed out to catch them with one lead rope in hand.  First I went to Gingy and invited him to come to me...he declined.  Then when I pressed the request he trotted off toward the hill.  I reapproached Gingy and settled for walking up to clip the lead on him.  We wandered back to the pen, then it was on to Marsy.  She was up in a little wooded area with Cherokee.  When she saw me coming she quickly made up her mind to be evasive.  "Oh well" I thought, "as long as Cherokee doesn't get excited she'll give it up."  Sure enough she did when she realized that Cherokee wasn't going to run with her.  She was suprisingly better about going back and getting her lead rope on; could that be because she has more respect and less trust?  Cherokee was the most facinating.  He didn't want me to put the lead rope on him, but when I walked off a little ways to think for about it he followed me.  So each time he stopped for grass I would back track to where he was and when he gave me his attention I would continue walking toward the barn.  When we got up to the gate using this method he was willing to let me put the lead rope on and from there I took him into the corral.

Today was about like yesterday with a few exceptions.  First of all when I went to get Gingy I didn't bug him about coming and therefore he was fine with getting caught.  My main goal was to do less so that Gingy could do more.  When we stopped so he could eat grass I would using walking toward the corral as my cue for him to follow me.  The first few times I did this I had to circle around toward Gingy's behind and when he allowed me to be within 2 feet of his leg I jumped toward him a little to get his attention.  By about the third try he was taking his cue a lot sooner.  The change with Marsy was that she didn't try to make trouble instead she came to me.  Cherokee was already very close to the gate when I was ready for him and he prefered to get his lead rope on instead of following me the way he did the other day.  All and all things are going pretty well so far I think.