the Bally Goat Gruff....

.....Went a trotting across the bridge today :-)

She came in in such a good mood today :-) I wanted to take advantage of a nice warm and not windy night when she was feeling amenable and see if we could visit one of the big bridges over the dual carriageway!!
So after a lovely groom I tacked her up- with the addition of my fluorescent exercise sheet - first time I think she's had the pleasure!
I did a bit of desensitisation work with her first - a glaring yellow 5 x5 rustly sheet could be construed as pretty damn scary if you haven't had one thrown on your back before. But B was absolutely fine about it. I was taken the precaution of that plus my own tabard just in case anything untoward happened, I wanted us to be totally visible to the traffic. (To get to this particular bridge we also had to cross a main road)

So off we went, apart from the first ten minutes this walk was completely new to Bally and we had a lovely time just pootling along.

I let her stop as we approached the main road - we came around the side of a field and the road is right there through a cut through in the trees - makes it a little difficult as cars don't see you till you are right by the road, so they don't slow down. We approached it nice and slowly, B started a couple of times as cars whooshed past, but realised there was nothing to worry about and just relaxed. I walked her forward to the edge of the trees and we had a gap so we walked across.

Off through an old farm yard, across the stubble field and we were in sight of the A120 and the track leading to the bridge.

Once we got on the track I stopped and let Bally watch and listen to the traffic again, then off we went, up nice and slowly...onto...and straight over the bridge!! She was a little nervy and stuck to me like glue keeping her ear locked on me the entire time - I just stayed totally relaxed and kept a nice steady walk, chatting away and stroking her neck and shoulder to reassure her, but she didn't show any signs of wanting to panic or being overly scared, what a brilliantly brave girly she is!!
I led her on over to a lovely patch of grass down the bridleway and let her have a nice graze for being so damn good :-)

Then it was time to head back on over and Bailarina was totally chilled about the whole experience, so much so that I was able to stop and take pictures on my phone to mark the occasion!!


On the approach



Almost half way, still unfazed, ears pricked and calmly standing when asked to and watch the cars and lorries passing underneath her.

She still gave a little start if something particularly big went past, but nothing that made me think, eek we'd better get our booties off the bridge.


So we kept going as as we came off the other side I let her stop and just watch for as long as she was happy to and as you can see, she was completely happy about the whole thing :-)

Didn't want to rush off, no paddy and most importantly no fear of the traffic.

I'm pretty sure we'll be spending quite a while going over the bridges now so we can go off and explore the fabulous hacking (and walk back home to my house once she's a bit fitter!!)

And that was it, a nice wander back to the yard, she stood by the side of the road waiting for a gap in the traffic, watched plenty of cars go past her and stood stock still patient as a saint waiting for me to give the OK to cross

Back to the yard for a brush off, feed and massive good girl cuddle

To say I am chuffed and very proud of our achievement today is a bit of an understatement