Well, this evening was interesting! I really wanted to play with Tug, but the first time I went to the barn, he didn't come up so I just petted Sugar. When I went later, he did come to me. I reached in the tackroom for the carrot stick and just tried stuff at Liberty. We started with leading by the leg and almost made it to his stall. Then we played the squeeze game, but after a few times, he left. So I stood in the barn and he came back. I think we did sideways from zone 1 after that but I don't remember what made him leave again. He stayed outside longer this time, but as soon as I started walking towards him, he started towards me. "Meet me half way!" Then I did a very slow backup by driving him the with the carrot stick and I tried to match his legs.We backed up to where he was standing before we met and I asked him to put his foot on the stump that the salt block is on. Then he stuck with me back to the barn where I started to zig zag in the hallway. It was all very slow. I'd take a step to the right and he stuck right by me! I was so surprised that he was so connected. When I walked towards the left, he moved over! I fed him after that since I couldn't have asked for anything better. :)
Then, with the help of a friend, I realized that I'm too busy NOT moving my feet and micromanaging Tug on the figure 8 that I'm not giving him enough of a gap to go through. He already has a confidence issue with seeing me in his right eye, and it's playing the squeeze game going through the cones. He's worse when his right eye is on me. So I just had to back and watch the savvy club dvd where Linda played the pattern with Remmer and Allure and I watched the patterns too. I'm really not giving Tug enough of a cue to tell him to actually change directions and go through. DUH!
Lots to lick and chew on!
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