Saturday Visit

I just went out for a quick visit on Saturday thinking it was supposed to rain. My first task was to work with Cody a bit. I tried this game where you shadow the horse and basically just follow it around with your arm over his back. We did that for 10-15 minutes when all the horses moved into the woods and just stood there swishing flies away. At that point I started trying to get Cody to move around on my cue. I was able to get him to back with very little pressure on his chest, and I had him turning away from his herd and standing there without flipping his head around. I didn't make him go up to the paddock at all, we just stood in the trees and played a bit. Each time I'd ask him to do something and he'd do it, I'd leave him alone and just stand there for a few minutes. I think the key with Cody will be to go slow and to start figuring out when he's ready to tune me out.

When I was done playing with him I decided to pester Axel a little bit. He was standing near a fallen tree so I moved him around a bit. At first he was very reluctant but after a few tries I could move his hindquarters by swinging the lead rope towards him. When I had him near the tree I climbed up bareback. He didn't really want to go up the hill to the paddock at all but the other horses started moving that direction so Axel gave in and followed. I was actually surprised at how balanced I felt on him bareback. After a few minutes he was responding pretty well to my reining with just the halter and lead rope. We circled around the pasture a few times and he decided he was done and went towards the paddock. He seemed to think that if he went in the paddock I'd get off. So after circling the paddock a few times he finally went out the gate and I pointed him back towards the back pasture. When he got partway down the hill that's when I got off and let him go back to his buddies.

I grabbed Corey (after chasing him around a bit - he's got this game where you have to chase him in 3 circles before he'll stop and let you catch him). He lead fine up to the pasture and the trailer. Unfortunately the trailer wasn't hooked to the truck so we couldn't really load into it. But after some weird spastic lunging (his previous owner must have just run him around in circles to use up energy because he'd just gallop around in a tiny circle) he willingly put both front feet in the trailer. He would have loaded right up had the trailer been attached and I had given him the chance. So there's no issues there I don't think. Now we just have to get Cody to load willingly.