August 24 2010
Twosox and I had a really nice playtime this morning. We did some traveling circles, sideways, Touch it from different zones and from different distances, and we did a little bit of zone 5 driving with one rein. Then once we did all that we played at Liberty! It was fun. We did some stick to me first and then I lined the barrels up and my end goal was to have Twosox jump the barrels, turn, face and wait, and then put his right foot in a tire. First though I didn't want to make any assumptions and knowing that Twosox sometimes has a little bit of trouble jumping... he jumps okay but he gets a little bit unconfident about it, I first asked him to squeeze between me and the barrels. He did that well and the first couple times he turn and faced me so we left that and then played with getting him to put his foot in the tire. He figured that out quickly and so then I asked him to squeeze between me and the barrels once more before I asked him to jump them but this time he went through okay but then ran off.
At first I wasn't sure if it was unconfidence or dominance but pretty soon I figured out it was dominance. So I would ask him to come back, which he would do and then we would go back to the barrels. After that happened twice I knew that it wasn't going to be fixed at Liberty so I just looped the 22ft rope around his next loosely so that I could support what I was asking, which was to turn face and wait. That helped and a couple times of jumping the barrels and asking Twosox to turn and face me I didn't have to even use the rope. He listened really well.
So it was really interesting and fun at the same time. Hopefully it will keep getting better over the next couple session :)
Naturally,
~Keri
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