Short stuff

The last couple of days I've spent about 45 minutes in the evening with my fella.  We worked on a "walk on" cue and comfortably moving forward with me standing about where I'd be if I was riding, with one hand over his back and the leadrope functioning as reins.  It gives us a good chance to work on "whoa" also.

Yesterday he did pretty well without the saddle, but once I saddled him the same exercise rattled him.  So we did that only very briefly, just looking for a really good effort and not expecting him to be comfortable with it.  Then we unsaddled and called it a night,

Tonight we walked to the concrete pad near the old barn - this is his second time standing on it and he was much more okay with it.  This time he could stand still, in happy anticipation of a treat.  Last time he kind of marched in place, lifting and setting down his feet a lot on the alien surface.

Then we went to the trailer to saddle up.  The dogs knew I was handing out treats and they were being obnoxious.  Here Winston isn't barking or anything, just having a big happy pink mouth, I guess.

We did some circles over poles at the walk and trot, and whenever we stopped he was all eyes and ears.  He's so cute. (It was getting dark and really too late for taking pictures.)

Then we worked on walking forward with me standing in riding position, and it was more difficult than without the saddle yesterday, but better than with the saddle yesterday.  We didn't have the round pen to guide us, so he had to respond to rein cues, every now and then.  He did really well.  Still flinches a bit sometimes at movement or sounds back there, but we are making progress.  He's pretty awesome.