Joey Day 11

Well today it is raining and we took a little field trip. You know if your gonna be serious about working with horses I guess you have to be a little daft in the head. But yes I was out there in the rain with Joey. He doesn't care if it is sunny or rainy. Anyway, I had to work him at liberty to begin with today. He wanted to play catch me if you can. So we did. And we didn't stop until he caught me. Haha! Really, though it didn't take him that long, only about 15 min. and he was ready to follow me anywhere. We did some disengagements and counterturns at liberty Then it was on the 14' line and down the road. I took him about 3/4 of mile down my road where there are all sorts of distractions, from cars splashing, to boogy men kind of plastic bags, logs laying alongside the road in ambush waiting to jump on his back. There are also dogs, but today they were not out. On the way we didn't just walk, but we worked on the sending game, I actually call it the c-exercise where I send him in front of me and then ask him to disengage his hips move his shoulders over and change directions all while I am continually walking forward. We did that a bunch, sometimes letting him go in a complete circle and then changing directions. We did several leg yields sideways down the road and lots of desensitizing to movement in front of his face. We played trot, back to walk, to stop and back up, the million dollar move which I have explained before. Then just walked off like we were going somewhere. I got to the place where I like to go on the power line and have to cross a ditch that is filled with water. He didn't want to go down in it so we played there a while and I would let him rest beside the water. He got his front feet down one side of the ditch and then we stopped and just turned around and went back home. Doing the same things on the way back. I must say he was real calm all the way. I do this especially now in my older age with horses I am not familiar with as to how they are on the road. I am sure he will be fine. Though I would have liked to see how he responds to more cars, trucks and busses. So we got back and I did some flexion with him and put him up. We didn't ride to today because we just didn't have time. Next time will be even better.