Joey Day 23

Had another great day with Joey. I wanted a 'no dust' day today. So my goal was to be as soft and easy as possible and still get the right result. And we did. I circled/lunged him, put the saddle on and then worked him at liberty, disengaging, moving his shoulders and even desensitizing him with the rope this time. He did real well. I got my lariat out and swung that over him, and even threw a loop over his butt. He took off, but I tried again and again and finally he would just stand there. Then I took him out in the yard and down the road. I wanted to just work on softness and yielding his barrel to me. He is making progress here too. We went down the road, which he has been down before, but this time I kept changing direction on him to make him pay more attention to the rein and my leg. He got a bit boogery at a certain point on the road where there are woods on both sides. It seems there must a boogey man somewhere in there because he sure was reluctant and wary to continue. But we did. This offered me a chance to have him do several counterturns or moving the shoulders over. he is getting real good at those. I even had a chance to work on some rollbacks because the edge of the road and ditch offered a natural fence. We made our way back to the home ground and closed with an easy work out. Needless to say, all went very well.