Olive's haunted house

When Ryan arrived at the barn on Saturday, he came straight back to Olive's run, where I was preparing her for the costume contest.

I climbed aboard for a few pictures.

Then I dismounted and we walked her toward the ring. As soon as it came into view, Olive slammed on the brakes.

She'd already been in there earlier that day, but I guess she was hoping order had been restored.

No such luck, sweet girl.

I got her moving again, but she was definitely on high alert. 

Ryan took a picture of us and said, "Oh, I see. A desensitizing party is haunted house for horses." 

I laughed and said, "That's a good way to describe it." 

Since Olive was being so looky, we proceeded to the easiest obstacle, a bucket filled with water and apple slices.

Olive likes apples, she is deeply suspicious of random arena buckets. I thought she might be better after drinking out of a bucket for a week while she was in the hospital.

And she was right up until the moment her hackamore's cheekpiece clanked against the handle.

Oh, Olive.

After that trauma, she had trouble trusting anything.

We'd had a good training session with the umbrella that morning, so I decided to try that next.

She was fine when I picked it up.

Then she got worried again.

We worked through it,

but not without a little drama.

Good girl, Olive.

I decided to see if the pool noodles would be better.

They were.

The other walk through was fine, too.

Olive finished her tour of the desensitizing course haunted house with a visit to the blow up pumpkin man. She was very brave and got much closer to him than I had expected.

This probably isn't ever going to be Olive's strong suit, but overall, I think she did a really good job. Maybe next time she'll even eat the apples out of the bucket!