Breathing

I am noticing that when Cici gets unconfident she will flare her nostrils and snort. Her breathes become very short, panicy. When playing the circling game, if I don't keep her attention she goes into automatic and quickly starts to breath as if she has run a 100 laps. She has her inside nostril flared more than the outside one! And it takes a long dwell time for her to release and relax.

Since I am able to move around more with my arm, I've started to halter her and bring her out of her paddock. I have to say she is very accommodating in that I ask her to lower her head so I can tie the halter - I still can't raise my left arm all that much. But just stepping out of the paddock is a bit of a nostril flaring event.

I had put cones out in the indoor to walk around and weave through and in no time she was taking short quick breaths. I realized my error - I asked too soon, so I just walked her around the arena to give her time to regain her confidence. We then just stood still and I slowly focused my attention on my breathing taking long slow deep breaths. I remembered Frederique saying he syncs his breaths with his horses so thought I'd try. In just a few minutes Cici was relaxing and breathing with me! Wow!

I then walked her around and wove through the cones and focused on keeping both our breaths calm and relaxed. As a right brain introvert her threshold is a very very fine line. This is a my challenge. Watching her nostrils is a great indicator of how she is doing!