Twosox: Yo-yo's

August 14 2010

Well this morning I played with Twosox first. I went out with a plan and I think that all in all everything went well. I decided to do yo-yo's on the 12ft line. That was what I wanted to focus on this session.

First though I had to catch Twosox, something that Twosox and I have been playing with for a while. I could just walk up to him and halter him but I want him to catch me. He is really good at turning and facing me but he won't come over. So we played with that and took it slow. After a while he finally started taking steps towards me. Once he was with me I didn't halter him but just rubbed him all over and then after a while I haltered him.

Once we were up in the riding ring we did exactly what I had planned. Yo-yo's. I kept it consistent, I would ask Twosox to back up then go through my phases if he wasn't backing up or if he wasn't putting of effort into it. Once he put more effort into it I would quit and start again. It took a while but finally we started getting some where. Then Twosox decided to start rearing when I got to a phase 4 instead of backing up. To me it seemed like he just didn't want to move his hindquarters. He would start out with small rears and then get bigger and bigger and then he would stop and back up. Then I would quit and start over again. 

"Expect a lot, except a little and reward often" That was what I was trying to do. I knew what I wanted, I excepted the little steps and rewarded often. It will just take time. We ended though when I would ask him to back up and Twosox would back up, not extremely fast but I could tell he was putting effort into it. I asked him three times in a row (I would ask, he would back up, I would release, rub him and then start again) that seemed to work well. I tried giving him a longer rest but then it were pretty much back at square one again. So he seemed to better when I gave him a short rest and then started again. 

I was happy with the progress we made. I think I know what I need to do and it really helped keeping it short and simple, even though it wasn't always easy ;) We did do a little bit of sideways and Twosox was a lot better! He actually put effort into moving his whole body together. So that was encouraging!!

Hopefully our next play session can build on this one! :)

Naturally,

~Keri