Pony was pretty chilled on a loose rein but the mosquitoes were worse than I'd anticipated so we picked up a trot pretty quickly. I checked that we hadn't lost our brakes by virtue of being outside...they were a little sticky, but she is definitely pretty tuned in to some voice commands. I've felt her mouth before and her lips where the bit goes are tough as nails...poor gal, no wonder she's fussy about her mouth.
We did some basic walking and trotting, transitions every few meters, turning around when necessary, not speeding up when going home, etc. I think she really likes the figure-8 with the d-ring, she didn't offer to toss her head at all at the trot, so that's what we'll be sticking with. She was head-tossy at the walk but I blame the bugs.
Once we got more than halfway down the road, of course the chihuahua came out to play, so we stuck mainly to the far end. We did a little bit of cantering (only going away from home, of course). Pony only wanted to pick up the left lead, so I guess it's time to have a discussion about picking up a certain lead on a straight line. It was starting to smell like rain, so we turned around and headed home. Sure enough, we got about halfway home when it started to pour. Keeping pony at a respectable walk was a bit of a challenge with wet, slippery reins, but we made it back home without having to turn around.
Pony had turned into an Appy with the rain :P
We made it to the edge of the barn
and luckily got inside before the thunder started.
