Sunday, January 25, 2009

A walk on the wild side--contributing to the one-sidedness of a minor

So I've been lazy the last couple of days and not posted. Friday night I went out and made him work for his supper. He gets all pinned back ears and sort of lunges at the fence (so I just stomp towards him) when I am carrying his food, but if I'm not actually carrying his food, he's fine. A few times, because of time constraints, I have taken him away from his food to work with him a bit and then let him go back to finish. He's been very good about that. He doesn't get cranky about it and still pays attention to me even though he'd probably rather be eating.

Last night, we went for a walk in the dusting of snow that had decided to fall from the sky. About halfway through our lap around the yard, I went to his right side and was going to go for another lap from that side. No go. Tried some circles to get him moving, but he was having none of it. I realized that I had let my habit of leading from the left side contribute to Cody's one-sidedness. How awful of me! So I went back to the "good" side and led him back in his pen and we went back to the beginning on the "bad" side and did circles and finally managed to get a few forward steps when leading on the right. So I know what we will be working on today!

1 comment:

Rising Rainbow said...

It's easy to get into that habit of only leading or working the good side. I have to remind myself to work that other side pretty much equally to build what I want with my horse.