Better day

Today was better all the way around. I first worked with Skye. He did real good and was real calm. I am sure that horses can pick up on an inner angst in a person and I think yesterday was one of those days where the inner me was out of sorts. Today was totally different. He responded calmly to everything I asked of him, even the circling exercises. So we just went through everything with a calm fluidity about it. It was the same with the Arabs. I took So Grand first and let him go in the rd pen. He showed he wasn't too interested in paying attention to me so I made him move out. We probably worked 10 to 15 minutes getting inside turns and trotting, loping around. Then when he started to facing me on his own I let him and then had a good rest with him beside me. I put the halter on him and did YH YF and backups. I even got to pick up both front feet and cleaned them out. I did it by making him really move alot on YH or YF and backup then gave him a chance to stand. Finally, after doing that 2-3 times I could pick up his feet and clean them out. Now it is on to getting him to pick up his feet on cue. We did some LR (lunging for respect 1) and he picked up on that pretty good. We quit real relaxed. Moonie, I was told, was not feeling well, not eating. So I took it easy on him. I had to practically drag him out of his stall. He was moving real good in there so I know that he was just being resistant. However, when I got him in the pen, I took the halter off him and he really followed me pretty good. So rather than put my halter on him I did everything at liberty, YH, YF, backup, desensitizing, LR 1. He did all of these without resistance. I picked up his front feet and cleaned them out. He picked them up when asked. And I picked up his hind feet with not much trouble. He gave me a little resistance when I went to put his halter back on him, so I just moved him and pulled him back toward me by YH. Then slipped the halter on and put him up. It was a real calm lesson for him too.