Ben & I had a great time today. First, I let him do his thing in the round pen- he had to roll, and roll, and roll some more. Whinny, snort, buck, spin. He was then good to concentrate on the tasks at hand.
First things first- groundwork. Move left, move right, move back, forward. Halt. Then comes grooming. What a stinky, smelly mess. I can't wait for him to shed out so he can get a bath.
Once the dust and dirt was knocked off I let him sniff his polos and on they went. He stood completely still, kind of bending his head down and around to watch- it was quite funny. When I let him walk out he did the typical spanish walk for a few steps.
From there I longed him briefly- the work we did prior to our mini-vacation must have really stuck- because he was quite responsive- walk, trot, halt, and both up and down transitions. I did just enough to practice the transitions, then changed direction and did those directions.
Observation: Ben moves much more freely to the right, and halts worse to the right- selective hearing in that direction, lol. To the left he wants to break gait from trot to walk, and is a little more stiff through his body. He also responds to the halt command better to the left.
He got really sweaty from a very small amount of "work" - poor dude- he really has to get going on shedding out that coat. Thankfully, it seemed to loosen a bit during our work and was coming off in droves with the shedding blade. YAY!
In addition to massive amounts of body grooming, I also worked on his mane a bit- he doesn't care at all about mane thinning.
All in all, I was quite happy with what we did, and the amount of knowledge he retained and displayed. For being quite a spunk during the day, he really controlled himself during work and had great ethic. I'm proud of him!
No comments:
Post a Comment