Today was a day to try something different. I wanted to try something new and fun with Blue. After flipping through my Savvy Club DVDs I got an idea to teach Blue how to assist me when mounting bareback thanks to Linda’s segment with Remmer on the October 2008 DVD. On the DVD it said that it was for Levels 3 and 4. But I figured we could try it and at least start working on the different steps to build up to it.
We started with the Friendly Game, rubber him all over, from the tips of his ears to the tips of his hooves. I spent some extra time scratching his butt, and belly, got him to lift his tail, and then lower it, and lift it again. I then tested him to see how well his Porcupine Game was and he was spot on. He had no hesitation moving away form the pressure at pretty much the thought, is there such thing as a Phase -1??
In the past I have gotten him to lower his head with pressure on the poll, or by slowly clasping my hand around the lead line and putting an ounce of pressure on the rope downward. So none of that was new to him, just refreshed him a bit on it then went on to teaching him to raise his head when I tapped his jaw bone or clucked. He quickly caught on and was lowering his head so that his nose was practically touching the ground and lifting right on queue.
I then got him comfortable with me jumped up and down by his side while his head was lowered; he was a bit hesitant at first but quickly got over the worry. So then I started putting a little bit of weight on his neck. He was progressing rather quickly and I was pretty impressed with my boy at this point seeing as we had only been playing for 5 minutes or so. I then got him to lower his head way down, hopped up so my chest was over his neck, he lifted his neck on queue and slid me back and I was mounted!!
I of course rubbed him all over and gave him some good treats for being such a good boy! He was just perfect! I got down, played some friendly game and then asked him to do it again. As soon as I was situational (he didn’t lower he head until I was on, giving me some extra support to swing myself up on him fully seeing as I was weighted down with all my snow gear!). As soon as I was on his back he turned his head around looking for his treat! I think he really enjoyed the session. It was something new and kept his mind engaged and attentive the whole time.
I really need to come up with more challenging and new tasks for my Left Brain Extrovert! Any suggestions??
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