4/22/11

I met Tug behind the barn and he came straight to me wanting me to help him with the flies. After putting the halter on and rubbing him at the same time, he left when I reached for the 22 ft line. I stood there a few minutes and then I finally went and got him from the barn.

I finally noticed that he was unconfident/unsure about me moving the line around. (winding it up, tossing it from one side of me to the other and just making big movements with it) I took about 10 minutes or so just tossing it around and winding it up until I noticed an obvious change in him. He started rubbing flies off his legs, blinking a lot, and moving his head more and then finally licked his lips. Big step! He got a little scared when I tried to get him to do something with a tire and he tried to leave. "Don’t be afraid, but do what I say." Back to flinging the rope around so he could determine friendly from when I actually want him to move. When I did it that time, I think it set us up for success for the rest of the session. We went over to a log and did a sideways porcupine game with it and then I tried to use the porcupine game to lead him over it with one front leg. He’s gotten really good at backing up by his back legs, but when I tried it with the log, he couldn’t do it. So approach and retreat with that stuff, and pretty soon he could back his front legs over it with no problem while I was in zone 5. After I brushed him, I gathered up some things to set up a weave pattern. He did really well for the second time we’ve ever done it! There were a few dominance issues, but once that was straightened out, he has his ears forwards and was doing the pattern almost perfectly. Just as we would get to the end, he’d get a little ahead of me so he ended up going sideways through the last set of obstacles, but he actually caught on to it that way. :) At lease the weave seems easier than the figure 8. Then we went out for a short graze.

When I put him in the roundpen after coming in from moseying around the house, I expected him to start eating the green leaves that had fallen from the trees during the storms. He didn’t though. Instead he came to me after I turned him loose and sat by a barrel. So we actually started with a little bit of Liberty. I think he misses his pedestal that used to be in the roundpen because he put his foot on my mounting block/barrel. He started looking for food after I got on him, so I started to teach him to back up by bouncing the rein. I think I was on him for about 10 minutes but we mostly just did lateral flexion, bending to a stop, and backing up.