Cody on the Road - Try Try Again

It was too nice out to not go for a ride down the road even if it had to be a slow one with Cody. I groomed and tacked outside to avoid having to clean up the barn aisle since I was short on time. Cody was his usual pokey self going down the driveway. He decided he needed to go left out of the driveway first. I assume he was looking for his almost-girlfriend, Diva, who has since left the barn. When I turned him around it was slow going again down the first part of the road in front of the pastures. We ended up in the ditch that they had mowed fairly recently. As soon as we passed the first culvert Cody stopped and started his backing up routine. When I finally got fed up with asking nicely and kicked him on he gave in and moved forward. I asked for a trot and a canter to wake him up but the canter ended us in the middle of the road. So we went back to the ditch and continued away from the barn. But I had his attention at this point and he moved forward without proding so we turned around (calmly) and headed back to the barn.

I generally make Cody walk past the barn before we turn in so he doesn't get any ideas. So we stayed in the ditch and passed th driveway at a bit of a trot. When we turned around to go back past the driveway I turned him around again and this time he didn't want to go back to the barn. He was dead set on going back down the road in front of Diva's and Dolly's pasture. Then he was dead set on going past the pasture toward the highway. I'm not sure what got into him maybe he was lost. I finally turned him around and aimed him back at the driveway. So it's still not relaxing to ride Cody down the road but he's getting better, slowly. It's been a long time since we've gone all the way down past the first intersection with or without some one else, we'll have to give that a try. At least the rides haven't been scarey or dangerous like they were earlier this year. And of course when we returned to the barn everyone got their last two cobs of sweet corn as a reward for being just so darned cute.