Val 4/5

Today Val worked more on getting to know pieces of the harness and how to give to bit pressure. We worked more on personal space and moving hips over as well. He has "selective hearing" for when he's asked to "move over" when it comes to his hips!

The breastplate and bridle were added, and he stood tied fairly quietly for harnessing. I put the bridle on and worked on making sure he gave to pressure on each side. He was lead out with long reins attached to the bridle (HIS bridle, not the blinkered bridle yet!), through the breastplate rings and through the saddle. The breeching and traces were tied up out of the way.

He was led with an on-the-ground handler at his head and I had the driving lines. I used his "leader" (Vicki) to start transferring his verbal commands to the driving lines. He stopped nicely and he was able to go back and forth on each side of the driveway guided by gentle rein pressure as he walked. He understood what was being asked of him, but (as expected) had the attention span of a cricket and was more busy trying to "catch" and chew on the lead rope than actually listening or noticing what was going on around him. Due to rain the previous day he had to be kept in for 2 days. He had been turned out all day today, but between the lack of turnout yesterday and high winds today, he was completely full of himself and hard to work with. His attention span really was quite shot from the beginning, he seemed to forget all the work we had done the past week with NOT grabbing at the halter during haltering, NOT trying to knock his handler out during haltering, NOT dragging his handler etc. But, backslides are expected. We forged on, but his chewing on the lead rope was so disruptive that I disconnected him from the lead while Vicki had the reins and just walked by his side. He spent the whole time going back up to the barn balking (better that than dragging, at this point!), trying to chew on the breastplate, trying to chew on me etc. It also showed he was taking all his cues from his leader at his head, not as much from the person behind him driving (but that's to be expected!!!!!) It's the first tiome I've ever considered putting a muzzle or a flash or SOMETHING on a driving horse!!! I don't see him stopping that behavior any time soon.....my poor breastplate!

He had to stand QUIET to have the harness taken off, and was (overall) fairly well behaved for it, only having to reprimanded for trying to walk/back/wiggle a few times. It's a serious hazard to have a horse that will not stand quiet for being put to cart or unhooked from it. So, it has to be established EARLY on that patience and standing is a necessity,

I'm working with him a little "out of order". I'm letting him dictate a little what we're working on. I normally start lunge work, get that down, start lunging in harness, get that down, THEN start line driving. But in this case, it made more sense to do the "getting used to the harness" work with a leader in straight lines and in a familiar environment. I'll be going back to my more traditional lunge/round pen work in the next training sessions and he'll be doing Lunging 101 soon.