Wednesday Walks (and Warwick)

Goggles and I have ventured further and further from his barn recently, mostly strolling along on a loose rein. We've made it about half a mile down the road, which doesn't sound like much, but since we're progressing along solo, I'm pretty darn proud. 

The kiddo is clever too. There's one house where there are usually people in the yard, under the trees, doing things. And he always pauses there for a minute to check out if there's anything going on. He also actually wanted to see the donkey and horse who live across the street and continued our little hack on longer on purpose to find them. 

I've been using more and more of Warwick Schiller's methods recently. Our trail ride last week was a great chance to use his principle one in training: make the right thing easy and the wrong thing hard. It's a different version of the approach and retreat I used last year on Ben. The second they turn away from a spooky thing, you trot a largeish circle, making them work a bit before pointing them back at the spooky thing. As long as they're facing it, they get to chill, but the second they turn away, work. Occasionally you ask for a step a bit closer. It's pretty darn similar to the cowboy's method for trailer loading - if you're straight to the trailer you get left alone, you just occasionally have to give us a new try. 

Beautiful day

New territory for us- there are cows and horses in this field, but they were alllll the way in the back. He could smell them though and was definitely looking for a visual to match to the scent. 

The spooky stump

That eventually we got close enough to that he sniffed it... and then started eating it... (he's got a salt block, but I'm going to get him a mineral mix too... weirdo)

You can't see the terrain very well, but this is what I have for hills at home - ditches along the roadside. We were doing some serpentines through them, very good for his proprioception

Home is to the right there, but he kept going past the driveway looking for the donkey and horse

Supervising work on the lawn mower once we got home

He's really, really found his groove of leaving the other horses and not caring at all. And I am just delighted. He's getting quite fun to explore on, power walking down the road on a loose rein for the most part. I saw glimmers of this when he first arrived, but then we went through a year long phase of feeling very very attached to our friends. I'm hopeful that through consistent, positive repetition, and maybe a touch of him just growing up, we've got a new outlook on leaving our friends.