SCARY TREES AND USING THE CARROT STICK

I thought I would teach Lutallic to lunge in big circles in the round yard using a real lunge rein instead of the 22' rope today. As usual, I changed my plan, but this is OK.

As we walked up the arena paddock, Tallic grew a few hands and got rather 'excited'. I thought he was staring at the paddock lice across the road, but it turns out I had forgotten all about the freshly trimmed trees at the fenceline near the road. Powercore send a mob out to cut the trees back from under the powerlines every so many years, and they were here the other day, but as yet have not returned with the branch muncher.

Tal did do one little take off and turn, but I rubbed his whither region and talked to him, and we walked up to the arena. He tends to put his head up high, stop and stare, and then rush forward to see what he's worried about. He listened and kept pace with me quite well considering; much better than he would have done 2 weeks ago.

We did some walking/leading exercises for a little while, progressed to trot, and only had one little 'shy' at the nutty dogs next door. (They have recently acquired another dog and the crazy thing grabs the fence with its teeth and pulls violently at the wire. God help us if it ever gets out, I can imagine what it would do with a limb.) Anyway, off to the round yard we go.

I grabbed the carrot stick and string which I'd already placed on the peanut gallery and proceeded to rub it along and over his body, allowing the string to dangle and tickle etc. He's not overly keen on it being on his ears, but he put up with it. I did do this sort of work with him very early on, I think when I was preparing him to wear a rug (2 days after getting him!!) I probably used the lead rope though (I think) as I can remember winding it around his legs and all over.

We then progressed to walking along with the carrot stick on his back and rump, string trailing. This was going well, so we moved on to trotting, using the stick with a 'tap tap' motion to ask for the next pace. If he dropped his head to eat (he is WB) I used the stick as an aid to go forward. Same if he backed-off for any other reason.

Lutallic figured all these things out quickly as always, so when Nicole arrived with the kids, I decided to take the halter and lead off and leave him in the round yard loose for a while. Well, off he went! Tal managed to do quite a few laps of the round yard, quite fast, and I managed not to panic! Yay for me!

I watched him for about a minute and decided it was safe to leave him galloping around. He eventually slowed to a trot (I watched him from inside). Although he was only on his own for a few minutes, he managed to work up quite a sweat and was still huffing and puffing minutes later when tied-up in the corral again. What a goose.

I decided today was the perfect day to give him a hose down. He was hot and sweaty, and, it was still hot enough for him to dry before nightfall (we're getting a few warm days now). Hosing him was no problem, he acted just like a grown-up! Afterall, we have done it maybe 2 or 3 times before. What a champ!!

It seemed a good idea to leave him tied-up to dry, so I checked that my tie-up knots were safe (no loops for him to stick feet in if he pulled-back) and left him in Boo's capable care. I kept an eye on him, and visited and brushed him, before finally returning and releasing him.

Overall, another successful adventure.