Raining Saturday

I was on my own on Saturday so I ran out to the barn and tried to beat the rain. I actually ended up driving through it on the way down there but it was light and it was intermittent. I still would have preferred a day like Sunday but I guess I'll take what I can get. I groomed Axel first since he was nearest and looked interested in some attention. He's walking really well now. Just the tiniest bit tender but I watched him canter away from someone and came out of it no lamer than before so that's a good sign. And I hear he's been off the bute for a week now, another good sign that he's on the mend. My main purpose for heading over there this weekend was to drop off Axel's super huge bucket of joint supplements. It'll probably be a few weeks before we see any results from them, but I'm looking forward to it. Axel is almost back to his nice sleek black color. Which will of course turn brown again when he gets out in the sun.

I ended up having to chase Cody around the pasture for a while. His usual method is to walk away from me for 10 feet or so and then stop and let me catch him. Well he decided he wasn't going to be caught. So shooed him away with the lead rope several times around the pasture, in and out of the paddock. He finally ended up in the paddock alone so I locked the gate. He ran up and down the fence line for a while trying to figure out what to do while I watched. He finally stopped and walked toward me when he got tired of pacing. I really have to lay out a plan for working him through this herd bound issue. I groom him in the barn away from the other horses. He's not terrible but after a few minutes he tries to dig a hole under the barn wall. I finished grooming him and the rain had let up, at least for a moment so I saddled him up and went out into the round pen. My other idea for getting him through his issues is to do more work near his herd where he can be calm and listen to me. It's not fool proof but we'll keep working on it. He was fairly attentive in the round pen. And I did discover he's a lot more willing with neck reining and leg than direct reining. I'm not sure if that will translate to the trail when he's ticked off about not being back at the barn, but I'll give it a try. That also means I might have to pick up a new shanked bit if that's what he'd prefer to listen to. We worked a little on bending to a stop as well, but that didn't go quite as smoothly. And we're still having troubles standing for mounting. The trick to work on standing while dismounting isn't going to work for him since he stands well for that. I'll have to dig around and see what other techniques I can find for working on that issue.