Today was GREAT! It only took me a couple of minutes to get Phoenix to stop shying away and let me halter him. Yaaaaaayyy! He's such a good boy!
So, once we got all ready, it was off to the round pen for another session. I'm making the call to shorten his round pen time until I get a farrier out to see him because his left front hoof has a crack in it that's (I think) pretty bad and I DO NOT want, under any circumstances to hurt him. I'm really glad that our round pen is covered in fairly deep, soft sand. If it wasn't, I wouldn't be working him at all until the farrier comes out. I'll try to take a few pictures tomorrow. Maybe someone else with more experience can tell me what they think and whether or not I'm overreacting? The sole is pretty overgrown (I think) but there's a crack in the front outer wall that goes to the white line and runs about an inch up. I don't know. It just looks ucky. Heck, all of his feet look ucky but they STILL look pretty darn good considering how long it's been since he's had his hooves done (at least 2 years!)
Anyway, we worked in the round pen for about half an hour (mostly trotting but more walking than yesterday which is good) but I really wanted him to slow down more than he was and not get bored so I tried something else...
I stopped him, led him out and we went for another walk on the lead and during our walk instead of just letting him kinda do what he wanted, I gave him the commands "walk on," and "whoa" every time we started or stopped. He's not too keen on the "whoa" but he got the hint about "walk on" after just a couple of times. Go Phoenix! Went a little farther today than yesterday. We're pretty close to a fairly well traveled road and I want him to get used to the idea of cars whizzing by in small increments. He definitely notices them now and is interested but not scared so far, so that's good. Also, he didn't spook at all during our walk today, which was even better. He did (apparently) contact a new friend somewhere up the street by neighing in my ear a couple of times. That was fun. =)
After our walk, it was back to the round pen for about 20 more minutes. He balked and wouldn't go in like I asked him to once he realized where we were going but that was easily solved. I opened the gate, walked him right past it about 5 feet, turned him around and let him right in like we were turning a corner, no problem. He didn't even flinch.
2nd round pen session went much better in terms of speed than the 1st as he was walking about half the time and trotting about 1/2. The only thing I noticed today was that he has a tendency to crowd into me when he's going counter clockwise and I really have to work to keep him from spiraling in. Not exactly sure how to cue him that I want him to go out but I'm trying different things. When I find something that works, I'll stick with that. The other thing I noticed is that stepping toward his forward end will NOT stop him, he just gets confused. But, all I have to do is take a single step backward, wherever I'm standing and he almost immediately stops, turns in and faces me. So, that's our new "whoa" cue. Cool.
The major victory of the day was that I was able (with a little helpful advice from my new teacher, T) to get him to calm down enough that at the end of the session, P stood for a whole HOUR quite nicely with a minimum of fuss and let me brush everything except his mane and tail. I'm not sure I want to push it THAT far in a day. He was so good though!
I also introduced him to Das Beetle (my car) and he proceeded to slobber all over the rear window. I think tomorrow we'll start with the squirt bottle and water to get him ready for fly spray and try to get him to let me do the wipe on spray when we're done.
All in all, the day was a great success and I'm very, very proud of my boy. Go Phoenix!
