And I feel as crappy about it as Chilly does. Shes really sensitive about loosing her baby caps, and although we are seeing the teeth come out (usually in her feed dish) there are still some causing her issues. Our dentist was seriously injured this spring shortly after she did Chilly's teeth last time (mid May), and is unable to work but told us that waiting it out is the best bet at this point. Pulling on caps that aren't quite ready to come loose might cause more damage then letting them come off on their own.
So I've been riding her only in a bosal (I did put her in a bit for the show but she wasn't happy by the end of the day) and we've been doing really good. I have lots of body control but I just couldn't get her to give her face to me and break at the poll. So D thought about it for a week, then showed up at the barn with his idea, put her back in the side pull, and use a running martingale to help her figure out what we wanted. It took less than a minute for her to go from "I have no idea what these people want" to "OH I GET IT! Nose IN!" Total breakthrough moment. I rode her like that for 20 min, only occasionally having to lift my hands up so that the martingale came into effect, but only as a reminder. We then took it off and put the show bosal on and the lesson transitioned extremely well.
I'm not a big one for short cuts but this was a bit more of a step back with a reminder, and so much less stress than the fight I was bound to get into trying to do things the 'right way'.
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