Friday, April 8, 2011

Back to Basics!!

Since we have been having some issues lately when Renegade is out away from me farther, I went back on the 12’ line to re-establish respect and it worked beautifully!! Instead of Renegade being out of reach of the cs and string, he was now within touching distance and he knew it. Our 7 games were fantastic as were our traveling circles and falling leaf. We had a pretty rousing session with me upping my expectations of snappy responses. It was amazing just how responsive he was!! When we were done warming up strong, we played with one foot at a time over a log, sideways from zone one over a log, back up over a log, splitting him in half lengthwise over a log, etc. I was asking for things that caused him to think down to his feet. We had an amazing connection and Renegade was really paying attention and was engaged. The most difficult thing for him was 1 foot at a time over the log; he kept wanting to rush his two back feet over. We kept playing with it until he finally slowed down and thought about it rather than just reacting and rushing over with his back feet. He made a great change at that point and I think he knew it cause he "chuckled" at me when he did it. At that point I decided our session should end as that had been so difficult for him and he made a positive change. Interestingly, I took off the halter and lead rope and he stayed with me even though we were in a big pasture, there was grass, and two of my other horses were grazing nearby. Then, as it was pretty warm out and he was sweaty, he laid down to roll. He was close enough to touch so I rubbed him with the cs. He kinda laid there for a minute and relaxed and did a little contented moan. We hung out for a few more minutes then went together to turn him out in the yard to eat grass. It was a great session!!

Oh…forgot to mention we also did circles with an obstacle in both directions and did great!!

No comments: