Day 26 - What is your favorite obstacle to play with?

My favorite would either have to be the pedestal, or poles. I love how energetic Tug is when I ask him to get on the pedestal, but I also like using poles. There's a lot of games that can involve poles.

I know it hasn't been long, but the last few days, all I've done is just try to spend a few minutes of UDT with him. It's been very cold, and one afternoon our session was in his stall. These few days have seemed to help a little.

When I went to see Tug, he was laying down in the sun. When I got beside him, he tried to look up and he nickered. I had my carrot stick with me and played the friendly game with it. That was the first time I’ve done it with him laying down, and he even let me walk around behind him and do it. When he got up, I used it to walk him over to see how dry the pasture was before I took him to the barn to get the halter. The first thing we did in the pasture was find a warm, sunny spot to stand. Then we practiced the circling game. He was very good about maintaining direction, but he didn’t want to maintain gait. After a few laps, and a few times of him coming in, he got a little better, but he only did about 3 laps. When I asked for a change of direction, he reared when I tried to correct his bad attitude, but he didn’t do it after that. Normally he gets tense when I try to do traveling circles, but it was a lot better today. He didn’t make a complete lap at the trot, but his head only came up a little. That was progress, so I didn’t push it. Instead of letting him come in right away, I just stopped moving and stood in neutral again, while he continued to walk around me. Then we did some stick to me on his right side, and that went well too. On the way back to the barn, I put the 22ft line over his back and let him follow. When we got to the barn, I asked him to squeeze between me and side of the barn because only one of us could fit on the drier land. I half expected him to just keep on walking, and maybe even trot away from me, but he walked to where he had more room to turn, and "turned, faced, and waited." I gave him the rest of the treats while taking the halter on and off, and then I started walking towards the gate. I only went a few feet, and then I turned back to make sure the tackroom was locked. Tug had his head where he couldn't see me, but when he did, he nickered again!