Thursday, May 27, 2010

Joey day3

Sorry this is so late, after helping my daughter move, watch my granddaughter graduate from kindergarten, I now can get to recording what I did with Joey earlier this afternoon.
I got him haltered, he seemed eager to go to work, I put him in the round pen. This time, I started to ask for  disengagements. I used at shorter line for that. He is getting sharper on that. In fact, it is getting to where if he senses I want that by my body language and position he gets his hinny over.:} That is a good thing. Then I worked on some flexion both sides and desensitizing with the stick and string, or carrot stick as Parelli calls it. He still likes to move off and actually I can tell this irritates him because he tries to move into me so I make him get out of my space moving his shoulder away from me and keep up the string over his back until he stops moving. He is one I do have to get stern with in this area. Then I put him on the 22' line and lunged both directions asking for transitions up and down and asking for an inside turn and move off again. We did several figure 8's doing this. Then we worked on back ups again. Then I started putting it all together by asking him to go forward, disengage, then move his shoulders and change sides. I then decided to take him off line and ask him for walk, trot, canter and changing directions. He has no problem going in the right lead (clockwise or to my right) but he doesn't like the left lead. In fact, I found he has a hard time getting into the left lead. He most often, when going counter clockwise, would take the right lead and have trouble getting into the left lead. I am not sure why.
My goal is not to kick up alot of dust or get him all tuckered out, by doing the liberty rd pen, however, I want him to hook on tom. He would hook on when I walked to the rail and ask for a change of direction when he came around and met me with two eyes. Then at a certain point I would let him stop instead of continue with the direction change. Or just ask him to follow me. But I am sure he would not stay with me if he wasn't bound by the pen, even though he would seem to follow me. Whenever I asked him to stand and let me flog him with kindness, he wanted to move off. And if I asked for a disengagement he would move off. So we had to go round and round with this. However, I think I am able to read him pretty good, I just have to make sure I am speaking impeccably with him on my cues. He is making good improvement in my book. I also have been leading him around and making him stay in a certain position. Then I would stop and back up and today, he was reading me pretty good and we were almost moving in unison. I was pleased with that. Tomorrow, my plan is to do some quick reviews and move on to liberty in the round pen to get that hooked on more set. I also plan to do some balanced turns on center, which we already have been doing in order to change sides. Then more desensitizing, Jeffries method, and saddling. We will see what happens.
I think he is making great progress and I am learning alot myself.

1 comment:

kathryn said...

dear jeff, again, i so enjoyed your comments on joey. i would like to know what you mean by "disengagement". i am not as familiar as judy on the terms of 'natural horsemanship'. but i want to learn. thanks kathryn