Clockwise

Moving Belle into the round pen today was a step in the right direction.  Literally, the right direction.  Her phobia of moving to the right, or clockwise, disappeared in the large, round space.  Rick and I set the round pen up just outside of the gentling pen, with two panels left wide open to form a chute, and with the help of a new friend who was visiting the mustangs today, it was easy to move Belle into it and close the panels behind her.

I gave Belle a few minutes to enjoy the view from her new position, then went in with her and put her to work.  Belle is still wearing her drag rope, but I haven't felt compelled to pick it up lately, since working at liberty is more rewarding at this stage of training.  Belle is very responsive to body language, so directing her movement was easy and a lot of fun.  Just slapping my arm against my thigh gets her going; no rope swinging or whip snapping is necessary for this girl.  For a full thirty minutes, Belle went round and round at a snappy, robust trot.  She's built like a hot rod, and watching that amazing body move was a real treat.  When changing directions, she hunkers down on her hindquarters and rolls the other way.  She's got some moves, that's for sure.  To the left, to the right, to the left again, back to the right, then whoa.  Look at me, Belle.  Good girl.  Look she did, but she could only muster the courage to take a couple of steps towards me.  I'm working hard to get a connection, to have her "hook up" or "join up" or whatever you want to call it.  She needs to want to be with me, to acknowledge me as her leader, so that I have her trust and respect.  Each time she looked away and withdrew into herself, I put her back to work doing circles.  The exercise gets tedious after a while, so I found a good note to quit on and stepped out of the round pen.

Belle watched me as I exited, and I noticed that she was tracking me with her whole body as I walked outside the pen, so I walked a couple of laps around it.  She stood in the middle, turned on her forehand, and kept her full face towards me as I moved.  It was a role-reversal, with her in the middle and me doing circles.  Not a good thing, but it was interesting.  After two laps, she figured out that she could just bend her neck around to keep one eye at a time on me.  I turned my back on her then and left her.

Belle blew her nose a few times, cocked a hip, and seemed quite content with herself.  She watched my friend and I as we brushed Capri and chatted for a while, and she continued to watch while I did my chores.  Later, Rick came out to the arena and asked how it went with Belle.  I went back in with her and played with her again, so that Rick could see, then asked him if he wanted a turn with her.  Well, of course he did!  He did well too, and was impressed with the progress that was made.  Tomorrow can only be better!