After I let Tug graze for a bit, I we did the weave pattern but there were some problems due to him being snotty. Then while trying to get him to trot some parts of the pattern, he just stopped moving. When I thought that I saw some sort of effort, I drew him to me, but he kept flicking his ears back and finally backed them for real when he got closer. So I had to correct and send him backwards and then I let him come when his ears weren't back. When I took him to the saddle, he was blowing out, licking his lips, nibbling and biting the saddle, and sticking his nose close to my neck. Once he was saddled, we did some sideways (away from me and towards me) to the roundpen. I set up a small jump (cones laying down on top of eachother) and he trotted/cantered around, sometimes jumping and sometimes not. (he's never really jumped anything when I've asked him to) But this was the first time he's actually jumped when he was calm. Then I got on and practiced indirect and direct reins and backing up. Before I got off, I positioned him on the rail to walk over the jump. He refused but I just kept positioning him in front of it and he finally stepped over it.. well, he actually stepped on it. A few feet from the cones, I stopped him, got off and took the 12 ft. line off of his halter. When I walked to the middle of the roundpen and sat on a barrel, he came to me about a minute later. Then... he started yawning. Big yawns and little ones. He was rolling his eyes back when he did it, and rolling his tounge around in his mouth and lips. Then he'd blink really hard. For over 5 minutes, he yawned and rolled his tounge around. The way he was twisting it looked like he could unwrap a starburst wrapper in his mouth! Sometimes when he yawned, he'd shake his head side to side like he was trying to get all of the anxiety/adrenaline? out. Then he put his lips over my arm and kinda on my leg. I'm not sure if he was trying to nibble/scratch me, but I could hear his teeth clicking. My arm just blocked him from reaching me. He licked me too. (that's not unusual though) Then he kinda put his head to the side and almost seemed like he was thinking about walking away, but he didn't. I don't know if he couldn't, or what, but then he cocked his leg. When I got up, I loosened his saddle, walked all the way around the roundpen and he followed. Not right behind me, but he followed. I didn't take the carrot stick, because I wanted to make sure it was totally his idea and not him thinking I was asking for something. But he followed me. I still had the line off of him, but I opened the gate anyways. He walked right past me when I turned to close it, and trotted to the other end of the barn. After I put all the stuff up, I peeked around the barn and motioned with my finger for him to come to me. It was kinda like a phase 1 I guess. He came straight to me, ears up! I gave him a handful of hay and took the saddle off.
He's never yawned like that before. I've been working on shims recently, but surely that didn't have anything to do with it....
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