Prince: Lightness, speed and distance on the back up.

January 6 2011

Prince and I also played with yo-yo's and back-up's. Prince backed up to the end of the 45ft line and it was a lot better than it used to be but after about 22ft he would loose speed. So we played with backing up farther than 22ft and maintaining the same lightness and speed. We started with porcupine game backing up by the nose. Prince did well with the lightness, speed and distance but he wouldn't go straight. So we had to play with that once that was going well we did yo-yo's to the end of the 22ft line and then I would start walking forward and ask Prince to continue backing up. 

This helped a lot and things were going well. Prince was keeping the speed up and stilling being light and responsive. Then I noticed though that he was still going crooked just a little bit and he couldn't give me two eyes all the time. I played around with different things and found that it was because I had just a little tiny bit to much energy and so Prince would just slightly tip his head to one side and then after a while he would go crooked, because he wasn't looking at me with two eyes. 

After that we got extremely straight yo-yo's, with lightness, speed and distance!! We then put it to a purpose and backed all the way to the gate and Prince was superb! He was straight, light and totally attentive, and also asking loads of questions!! 

We ended with backing down the path and then from 22ft away I asked Prince to turn his forequarters and touch the latch on the gate, which he did and got it on the first try :) One thing I had to particular about was at one point I had to ask Prince to turn and back with me in zone 2/3 but he thought he still had to keep two eyes on me so I just had to make sure I was really clear in what I wanted an to make sure that Prince knew that he could back up with out giving me two eyes, but when it was my idea :) 

Prince stayed with me even after I unhaltered him and so I scratched him and we hung out for a while before I had to go in and get ready for work. 

Naturally,

~Keri