What next?

Pretty sure every time we go out to the barn, Booker thinks, "okay what next?" Which is actually our plan.  We think if he's always expecting the unexpected he'll be that better of a horse because of it.  He'll always be ready for something crazy and will know that none of these crazy things will hurt him.  Well that's the theory at least ;)

So we popped out to the barn on Friday to do some more crazy things.  Our .22 blanks have arrived so we want to work as much as possible with Booker and our revolvers and keep getting him used to that both on the ground and under saddle.  Eventually we'll work up to the 45 and also figure out a way to work on the muzzle flare issue (we're thinking roman candles - stay tuned).

So we split up, one with a revolver one of us with the horse.  Walked Booker and shot and he did well.  Switched to walking next to him while fire, again did really well.  Finally ended up one person shooting while leading and again no issues.  We were going to end on shooting from the ground over his back to simulate being on his back but he was not thrilled about us even waving an arm up over his back before even firing.  So we guess Booker needs a little sacking out in addition to the shooting training.

Part of our sacking out we decided should be umbrellas.  What's more scary than a big umbrella?  So we worked on that in the arena for a while just from the ground.  He was a little hesitant about the umbrella and it seems like things on his left side are more scary (if I'm recalling correctly).  I was holding the lead and N was manning the umbrella. At one point when she opened the umbrella, Booker looked very concerned and walked around behind me to hide like a little kid hiding behind his mom.  It was pretty funny.  But in the end he did just fine with the umbrella and got lots of praise and treats when we finished.

What's next?  I have a marching band practice flag in my car right now, stay tuned ...