Chris Pease and Freya on her first ride. Pure joy!

The tire tower. Her favorite game in the whole world!

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The more time I spend with Freya, the more I discover about her personality and wiring. She’s grown enormously physically in the last 3 months, thick muscles and a broad neck. This makes her natural bent of extroversion and dominance bring some exciting new challenges.

Her desired place is to be right up close in your lap. A 1,300 lb lap dog. Without shutting down her wonderful, open friendliness, I want to keep her at arm’s length (+/- an extra foot) so she doesn’t accidentally step on me. It’s not the big things that are making a difference right now, it’s the little teaching areas that make a difference.

She had her first ride and first ‘ponied’ trail ride the other week. No issues, none, because the framework in her mind is healthy. But it’s the little things, like staying out of my space and putting her head down when I need her to.

One of the troubles I’ve been having with her lately is the flies. We have a good variety of flies, and she hates all of them. Her big head is nearly constantly in motion, stomping her feet, swishing. I think we have a normal number of flies, but she is very reactive. I’ve had to make some adjustments to teaching her. For example, we work inside of her shelter. The shade keeps some of the flies at bay. But I’ve had to slow things down and find ways to adapt. I’m retraining her to stand with a quiet head (no movement.)

Because of this, and the heat (stifling) we’ve been moving slowly through the lessons. I asked the Lord about this and felt the Holy Spirit tell me to ‘wait.’ -go slow. It helped, because it’s taken the pressure off Freya and me.

On a funnier note, she’s has developed her favorite routines. She loves climbing her ‘tire’ tower. This puts her about 10 feet up in the air, towering over me. Left on her own, she will climb it like a kid on a jungle gym. Her natural curiosity is endearing. The obstacle training helps her move through the forest, over creeks and downed trees, smoothly and without jumping.

God is good and best is yet to come!

Yes, she’s a snuggle bug. 100%