Catching up

I need to catch up on what has been happening with the horses. I missed the last three sessions with them. I have been making steady progress with So Grand regarding picking up his feet. He does pretty good at the other exercises designed to teach him to respect my space. I run through those then have been concentrating on picking up his feet. He picks up his front feet after some coaxing. In fact, yesterday I finally was able to clip the clown toes off of him. I didn't trim him, just got the two inches of toe off. The back feet he will let me pick up, but he leans on me on the left side, not so much on the right. And he lets me clean them out. I also have him lunging pretty good and am starting to work on sending him. Moonie had some issues with coming out of his stall. So one day I worked him in his stall and then let him stand in the pen. I had to really work with him to get him to follow me to the pen though. I think he just didn't want to go work in the pen and doesn't respond well to heavy pressure. So Wednesday I just stood in his stall with the lead rope and for almost an hour he would pace, then stop and look at me, then pace and stop and look at me. I wanted to let him know that just because I show up with a lead rope doesn't mean we are going to work. I wanted him to come up to me. So in that hour he came up to me 5x and each time I just let him smell me and stand next to me. I let him move away when he wanted but I didn't put the lead on him. I only rubbed him between the eyes. Then yesterday I went in his stall and stood there til he came up to me and put the halter on and slowly with light pressure we walked to the pen. I brushed him, cleaned his feet out and moved through all the exercises at a slow calm pace. I let him rest alot in the center. I know that I need to work him, but I also know that I would rather have a willing partner than one who has shut down and only does what I want because I make him do it. I lunged him as well, but had good rests between them. Then we went back to his stall. I can see his attitude changing.