Session With My Boys

Finally I had the perfect combination of good weather and free time during daylight hours so I took full advantage of the opportunity to have a play session with Chance and Blue.

First up was Chance, he eagerly stuck his nose into the halter and followed me out of the paddock up to the round pen. We played lots of Friendly Game with my hands as well as the carrot stick and savvy string; he was licking and chewing in no time. We then proceeded through the rest of the games online at first he was a bit sticky but it wasn’t long until he was showing off how responsive he could be. I took the lead line off and sent him out on a circle, we worked on changing direction with a turn on the haunches and having him stop and turn towards and face without coming in and then being sent off in the opposite direction. We also worked on change of gate, maintaining gate and going backwards around the round pen.

Next I changed things up and sat on a barrel that was off to one side of the paddock. Chance wasn’t too sure what to think about this at first, so I just ignored him and looked anywhere at him, once he stopped pacing the far side of the round pen, and turned and faced towards me and began to paw at the ground. I let him do this a short time before I brought him in as if he were online and we were playing the Yo-Yo game, he eagerly came forward. He let out a big sigh, began licking and chewing and allowed me to rub his head and neck. I then backed him away from me and sent him out on the circle. He wasn’t to eager to come around behind the barrel so I made it my idea to change direction along the rail and soon he was more than willing to go around behind the barrel.

He stood next to me and I rubbed his back and withers, he was a bit tense at first but soon began to relax. I then got off the barrel and we worked on backing him shoulder to shoulder, as well as turns towards and away from me. I didn’t even have to touch him once with the carrot stick he was very responsive and light. Letting out another big sigh and a big session of licking and chewing I figured that that was a good place to end the session.

Now it was Blues turn, he was already waiting at the gate for me, I haltered him and then lead him up to the round pen. We started with the Friendly Game as always then we went right to playing the other 6 games at Liberty. Blue was awesome, so light and responsive and eager to try what I asked. We then worked on the Circling game a fair bit, he had quite a bit of play with him so I used it to turn and spin him and you could tell he was having a blast, granted he had a few of his left brain confident and dominant head tosses. But I just kept spicing things up for him challenging him around every corner.

We had a blast, I was even cutting him much like another horse would cut cattle and he thought that that was a fun game, moving his feet quickly, hiding his hiney, spinning, twisting and turning. He looked great!! Needless to say I was very happy with my boys behaviour today!