Progress!

The last several days of nice weather have made me feel horribly guilty for not being out working Red. So today, I sucked it up, dressed warm and put on two pairs of gloves. Cause I just don't enjoy winter like I did as a kid.

It had been a few weeks since we last worked. So we started off kinda slow, with a lot of flat sides to our circle. And I came to a realization, becase he is so sensitive I tend to baby him. And surprise, he takes advantage! When he didn't want to do what I asked, he tried to evade. His choice of evasion is to spin to face me and back, or even rear if I keep pressuring him. Delightful.

Since having the Sqwid, I have noticed I am a lot more cautious working around the horses. I am constanly aware that I cannot afford to be injured and still take care of him. So I find myself getting nervous and even backing off when the horses get bad. This is not good!

So I gritted my teeth and got after him. I ran around to his side, got big and noisy and drove him forward. Once he trotted forward again, I stopped him and lest him rest.

And a fascinating thing happened. I had to do that another time, and then I got a beautiful working trot. We executed a nice turn, and did the same going the other way.

And on that note we took a break.

Later we moved onto a bit of ground driving.

You could tell I had let him sit too long and he gave me a bit of trouble. But eventually we got going nicely in the trees. It's a nice place to walk him, as every 50-100 feet there is a fork in the trail. Here he is taking the right fork.

Afterward, since he was nice and relaxed, I decided to do some hobble work. He was just lightly sweaty, and in a pretty good frame of mind.

I had done 3 (5 minute long) sessions of prepwork before this. Always at the end of a work session. Using a 12' cotton rope, I got him used to ropes around his legs. Stopping once he stopped moving away. Working him up to wrapping the rope around and then pulling it off. Last session I had wrapped the rope around 3 legs at once, tugging on both ends. When he moved not at all, I decided that next time it was ok to starp them on.

So today, I did a quick refresher, using the rope to wrap his two fronts, then drawing it off slowly. Yup, time to strap them on! So I carefully attached one to his near side pastern. He politely stood still, trying to see over my shoulder to find out what I was doing. I told him "stand" and shifted over to strap on the second one. Then I undid the lead and walked away.

At first he just looked at them...

Then he chewed them a bit...

Then he backed up...


Then he stood still and chewed for a bit. He relaxed and just looked around. He watched Caerwen patrolling in the distance...

In all, it was a good day.

And I think I found a trainer for Evil Poneh!